Bitcoin took a wild ride in 2017, reaching a record high above $19,800 in December and then plummeting below $11,000 in the same month.

The cryptocurrency isn't just a risky investment opportunity for the adventurous; it's becoming an alternative way of paying for regular things. Over 100,000 merchants worldwide accept bitcoin, including Microsoft, Expedia and at least one Subway sandwich shop.

You can also buy a house with bitcoin, and it's not as hard as you may think. You just need one thing: For the buyer and seller to agree on exchanging bitcoin for the property.

Consider the first single-family home sale in Texas involving bitcoin, announced in 2017: "The challenge, which actually wasn't all that challenging, was to figure out who would do an exchange that large," J Kuper, broker at Kuper Sotheby's International, told CNBC's Diana Olick.

The parties involved completed the transaction with BitPay, which turns bitcoin into dollars, because the seller wanted U.S. dollars, Olick reports. BitPay has handled other real estate transactions, including a Lake Tahoe property that sold in 2014 for 2,739 bitcoins, or $1.6 million.