As digital currencies such as bitcoin grow more popular, proponents have predicted there will come a time when major transactions like real estate sales will be done entirely online, down to the recording of property titles.

Now a startup called Propy has taken a step in that direction. The San Francisco-based firm has conducted a transaction in which cyber-currency was used to buy an apartment in Ukraine and the title was registered on a cyber-ledger.

The apartment buyer was Michael Arrington, the founder of online publisher TechCrunch, who also is an adviser to Propy. He remotely paid $60,000 for the apartment near the Dnieper River using a digital currency named ether—a competitor to bitcoin—for payment and “PRO” tokens, a new digital currency issued by Propy, for the registry fee.

The deal was registered on a cyber-currency technology known as a blockchain. The title change also was recorded the old fashioned way on paper, according to Alex Voloshyn, Propy’s chief technology officer.

But the deal broke new ground partly because the online and offline title recording processes were integrated under regulations adopted by the government of Ukraine, he said.