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uxury real estate is embracing cryptocurrency, with Christie's International Real Estate launching a dedicated crypto transactions division. This move allows for fully crypto-native property deals without fiat conversion or traditional bank involvement. The new unit will bring together experts to handle deals where buyers and sellers transact entirely in digital assets.

    This development highlights the potential of crypto to eliminate intermediaries in luxury real estate, but it also underscores the challenges of a still-maturing system. Despite technological breakthroughs, mainstream crypto user adoption remains elusive due to persistent friction points in payments and usability.

    Crypto's user experience is often improved with tools like custodial wallets and wallet abstractions, but these can mask deeper structural flaws and introduce new risks. The holy grail of crypto payments is a digital wallet that's intuitive enough for anyone to use, but developers' attempts to achieve this have created trade-offs between friction reduction and control.

    Cross-chain fragmentation is another issue, with dozens of blockchains each having its own wallet formats, consensus mechanisms, and token standards. This creates a fragmented and risky landscape for merchants and shoppers to navigate. Until there's a universal standard or dominant platform, users must contend with the complexities of smart contracts, jurisdictional uncertainty, and limited recourse.

    The irony is that many UX innovations in crypto may be more about masking its potential dysfunctions than improving the underlying infrastructure. To truly improve crypto payments, foundational solutions are needed to address high fees, fragmented infrastructure, price volatility, regulatory ambiguity, and weak consumer protections. Taxation is also a significant friction point, with every transaction potentially triggering a taxable event.

    Ultimately, building trust in crypto requires more than just user-friendly interfaces; it demands institutional support, stronger consumer protections, and clear regulations. Traditional finance systems have established measures to safeguard consumers, but crypto's ethos of "code is law" leaves users vulnerable to loss or exploitation.