Unit 5306 at 1100 Biscayne Boulevard (Barnes International Realty)
A longtime crypto investor paid $7 million for a unit in downtown Miami, marking the second highest priced cryptocurrency condo sale in the city of Miami.
Fernand Talpe, founding partner of the Miami Design District interior design firm The Private Collections, sold a unit at the Marquis Miami to Sergio Gutierrez, according to property records obtained by The Real Deal.
The city of Miami record for cryptocurrency condo deals was set last summer with the $7.2 million sale of a unit at the nearby Zaha Hadid-designed One Thousand Museum, according to brokers. Last year, the penthouse at Arte in Surfside sold for $22.5 million in digital tokens, setting a nationwide record for the largest known cryptocurrency real estate purchase.
The cryptocurrency market has been subject to major swings. It boomed at the beginning of the pandemic, but has fallen dramatically in recent months and days.
The buyer of the Marquis Miami condo, unit 5306 at 1100 Biscayne Boulevard, paid in Ethereum that was converted to USDC, a digital stablecoin that is linked to the U.S. dollar, according to the buyer’s broker, Zack Oppenheim of Oppenheim Realty. He represented the buyer, along with Madison Roberts of the same brokerage. Enzo Rosani of Barnes International Realty represented the seller.
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The six-bedroom, seven-bathroom condo spans 6,952 square feet on two floors and is made up of three units that were combined. It previously sold in 2018 for $3.6 million, records show. Marquis was completed in 2009.
The buyer, who Oppenheim and Rosani declined to name, is a software business developer who lives in Costa Rica.
The condo sold within a day, off-market, Rosani said.
Oppenheim, the buyer’s brokerage, was also involved in the July sale of unit 2202 at One Thousand Museum, where the buyer also paid in cryptocurrency. Brazilian TV star Roberto Justus, known for his starring role in the Brazilian version of “The Apprentice,” sold the condo for $7.2 million.
Federico Gutierrez Castro purchased the unit, also in Ethereum that was converted to USDC, according to attorney Alex Piquet of Piquet Law Firm. Keith Marks and Sonia Toth of Brown Harris Stevens Miami were the listing agents in that deal.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who has been working to lure tech firms and major investors to the city, is a big proponent of cryptocurrency. The city launched its own Miami Coin, and Suarez has said his mayoral salary of $97,000 is instantly converted into Bitcoin.
Sellers are also becoming more willing to do crypto deals. In the second half of 2021, sellers of 428 properties in the tri-county area considered accepting payment in crypto, according to Antonio Srado, a broker in Orlando, citing MLS data. That’s up 240 percent compared with sellers of just 126 properties in the same period of the previous year.