Listing price plummets on $29M NYC building being offered for crypto

The value of this Manhattan address didn’t change overnight, but its valuation did. 

A commercial real estate company CEO selling the rights to purchase a Chelsea office building in ether as a non-fungible token on OpenSea found his listing price had dropped enormously following bitcoin’s ongoing bloodbath. 

The CEO and owner of 109-11 W. 24th St., Chris Okada, listed the address for $29 million this month. As a result of the NFTs dollar value falling and ether’s downward spiral since the start of June, the $29 million property was suddenly only listed for the crypto equivalent of $16.8 million, spurring Okada to relist it at an adjusted price.  

“We’re going to relist the sale at $29.5 million, most probably Thursday,” Okada told CoinDesk in a Wednesday interview in which he continued to advocate for the future of the blockchain, despite the current setbacks. 

The NFT itself isn’t the actual deed to the building, but owning it would grant “exclusive rights to acquire the building, all its uses rights and related deed covenants,” according to the listing.

“The sale is really a bridge between the old-guard real estate servers and blockchain,” he told the publication. “I will be at that bridge, trying to figure out this connectivity issue. It may not be in New York, it may have to be, you know, Westchester or Miami, or it may be a forward-thinking city.”

Numerous homes have been sold via the blockchain in recent years, but Okada — whose company owns 43 buildings in Manhattan — believes this sale is the first time a commercial building in New York will be, the New York Times previously reported. The goal is to turn to blockchain to diversify clientele.

The current blockchain carnage isn’t the only issue Okada has experienced selling a property with this possibly visionary marketing gimmick: He’s also had to reassure some confused parties that the situation is real and not a scam.

“Yes. You get the property after buying the NFT,” Okada tweeted, responding to commenters who believed the situation may be fraudulent, the publication the Defiant reported. “Yes you can live in the building. Yes you can rent it out. It’s not just an expensive jpeg.”