In 2017, TechCrunch founder purchased an apartment in Kyiv using ETH. Now it’s going to be sold as NFT

Real estate transaction platform Propy will put the Kyiv apartment of the founder of TechCrunch Michael Arrington, who purchased it in 2017 using Ethereum, up for sale. The apartment will be sold not as a real estate object, but as a collectible NFT.

As reported by TechCrunch, the NFT will include access to the ownership transfer paperwork, a digital artwork by a well-known Kyiv graffiti artist Chizz.xr and photographs of the apartment. The auction will last 24 hours, with the initial listing starting at $20,000.

The transfer of ownership of an apartment as NFT 

Arrington has already signed legal documents drafted by Propy’s lawyers to transfer ownership to a prospective buyer. Currently, the apartment in Kyiv belongs to a legal entity from the USA. After the closure of the auction, the new owner of NFT becomes the owner of the legal entity and the property itself. This process will be repeated every time the real estate NFT will be resold.

“This NFT will go down in history. For Propy it is a major milestone in leveraging the promise of blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens (NFT) to achieve ‘self-driving’ real estate transactions and real estate participation in the decentralized finance economy,” Natalia Karayaneva, CEO of Propy, said. 

The auction starts on June 7 and will last 24 hours, with the initial listing starting at $20,000.

What will the NFT buyer get in addition to the apartment

The non-fungible token that the buyer will receive will include the following:

• documents on obtaining ownership of the legal entity, which owns the apartment now;
• NFT artwork by a well-known Kyiv graffiti artist Chizz.xr. The real artwork is painted on the wall of this apartment;
• photographs of the apartment.

The story behind the Kyiv apartment 

In 2017, the founder of TechCrunch Michael Arrington used Etherеum to buy an apartment in Kyiv. It was the first real estate purchase on cryptocurrency in Ukraine. The transaction was valued at about 212.5 ETH or $60,000 at the exchange rate at the end of September 2017. The transaction was also held through the Propy platform.

The parties concluded a smart contract before making a deal using blockchain. The smart contract address is displayed in the agreement, which is entered directly into the real estate register and the Etherеum blockchain.