50 Luxury Apartments in Dubai Purchased Using Bitcoin
Smart PlanetA cluster of 50 luxury flats in Dubai up for sale in bitcoin have all just been sold. Last September, the powerhouse billionaire investor couple Doug Barrowman and Michelle Mone published their plans to develop 40-story luxury towers in Dubai in which some flats would be sold for bitcoins.
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Barrowman recently noted to the press that the bitcoin initiative has been a smashing success thus far. He said:
“We allocated 50 out of 1,300 developments. We’ve sold all out. Some bought ones and twos, and one individual bought 10.”
Equi Is Underway
A single studio apartment in the lush green property costs $130,000 USD, which equates to about ~15.5 bitcoins currenty. A two bedroom flat costs $380,000, which is equal to about 45.70 bitcoins. The construction is slated to complete in 2020 by Barrowman’s Aston Development — a Dubai registered offshoot of Knox Group.
The entrepreneur couple pointed the sale of Bitcoin apartments while promoting their ICO project, Equi, a cryptocurrency powered investment platform. “I like to see this crypto space being used to buy real-world assets. That’s the spirit of Equi as well. It’s transcending the crypto space into the physical and real world.” said Barrowman.
That’s a transcending dynamic that’s becoming more and more regular. Recently, Tokyo-based real estate startup Yitanzi announced its plan to sell a commercial complex for 547 bitcoins, equating to about $6 million. Real estate and crypto are starting to go hand in hand.
More Bitcoin Apartments to Come Soon
Mone indicated that the luxury apartments received a “mixture of buyers.” However, a lot of them matched early bitcoin adopters.
She noted the project is Barrowman’s way to contribute something to the crypto community. “It was Doug’s passion and it was his baby because he was frustrated being in the cryptocurrency world with nothing to offer the community,” said Mone.
The couple revealed that more batches of apartments to be sold for bitcoins will come soon. The initial plan was to sell 150 apartments in Bitcoin.”We’re still getting lots of inquiries. We’ve not released another batch. Particularly when bitcoin was riding high in the charts. I think a lot of people were cashing out over the Christmas period.” said Barrowman.”