Manhattan Office Bldg for Sale with Cryptocurrencies Finds its Price Slashed

Manhattan Office Bldg for Sale with Cryptocurrencies Finds its Price Slashed  

By: Serach Nissim  

A Manhattan office building, which is being offered for sale with cryptocurrency, had its valuation slashed overnight, due to Bitcoin’s devastating crash.

As reported by the NY Post, the building at 109-11 W. 24th St., located in Chelsea between 6th and 7th Avenue, was listed for sale asking $29 million this month.  The 7-story building, built in 1902, boasts 46,564 square feet of total space, which includes 5,500 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.  The Chief Executive Officer and owner of the building, Chris Okada, offered the option of purchasing the building using Ether as a Non-Fungible Token on OpenSea, the largest NFT market place.

The price of Bitcoin has been famously taking a hit, with the price falling below $20,000 and down to a low of $17,592.78 on Saturday.  This tumble leaves Bitcoin down 50 percent year-to-date, and well- below the all-time high of roughly $69,000 in November 2021.

Ethereum and other crypto currencies have also experienced a downward spiral, along with Bitcoin, amid growing fears of recession, inflation and stock market volatility.  The market has been retreating from riskier assets over the last few weeks, and this has left the price of Ether to drop below $1,000 on Saturday, to $975, its lowest level since January 2021.  It is down 80 percent from its all-time high of $4800, marked in November 2021.  Just in two days last weekend, it lost 24 percent of its value.

As result of the blood bath, where the NFTs dollar value was slashed, the building at 109-11 W. 24th St listed for sale with Ether, found its price slashed and only listed for the crypto equivalent of $16.8 million.  Okada has since relisted the building to 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 express confidence in the future of the blockchain, even despite of the current situation.

The NFT itself is not 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,” as per the listing.  “The sale is really a bridge between the old-guard real estate servers and blockchain,” Okada said. “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.”

The blockchain’s recent devastating devaluation isn’t the only problem Okada has had trying to sell his property with a visionary marketing tactic. He has also met resistance and skepticism from buyers wondering if it’s not a scam.  “Yes. You get the property after buying the NFT,” Okada tweeted, trying to reassure commenters who expressed fear it may be fraudulent, the Defiant reported. “Yes you can live in the building. Yes, you can rent it out. It’s not just an expensive jpeg.”