You can buy a lot with cryptocurrency nowadays—even a penthouse in London or a completely flawless diamond. If it sells for its $242 million asking, the One Hyde Park penthouse could become the most expensive piece of real estate bought via crypto. Meanwhile the Key 10138 gem has already set records, selling for $12.3 million at auction and becoming the priciest piece of jewelry purchased with digital currency. So which of these IRL assets is the best virtual spend?
One Hyde Park Penthouse |
101-Carat Diamond |
|
A.K.A A “temple to bad taste,” according to the Daily Mail, itself an exemplar of bad taste. |
A.K.A Key 10138 because it symbolizes the “unlocking of a new era in commerce and technology” per Sotheby’s, where it was auctioned. (A bit dramatic, perhaps.) |
|
HOW MUCH IS IT WORTH IN BITCOIN? $6,090 Billion |
HOW MUCH IS IT WORTH IN BITCOIN $310 Billion |
|
VALUE-ADD Access to an 80-person concierge team at the adjacent Mandarin Oriental. |
VALUE-ADD Just documentation that the gem’s qualities are genuine. |
|
VALUE (IN ARTWORKS) About 3.5 Everydays artworks by Beeple, an NFT that sold for $69 million in cryptocurrency. 
Everydays artworks by Beeple. Sotheby's |
VALUE (IN ARTWORKS) Roughly one Love is in the Air by Banksy, which fetched $12.9 million in cryptocurrency.
Presentation of the exhibition ‘Banksy. The Street is a Canvas’. Marta Fernández Jara |
|
SUPERLATIVE Most likely to host parties that could put the Great Gatsby to shame. |
SUPERLATIVE Most likely to end up in a high-security, subterranean safe and never be heard from again. |
|
BIG SECRET Available via whisper listing, it has no official web presence. |
BIG SECRET Its owner is an “unidentified private collector,” until it shows up on someone’s ring finger. |
|
AFFILIATED WITH Property developer Nick Candy at the moment, who, with his brother, owns yachts called Candyscape and Candyscape II, plus another boat named (wait for it…) Catch Me If You Candy.
Nick Candy of Candy London. Ian West/AP |
AFFILIATED WITHThe Sotheby’s listing likens it to the Cullinan I, the most famous diamond in the world, which is currently residing in the Imperial Sceptre of Great Britain.
The Cullinan I diamond. Sotheby's |
|
SPARKLY DETAILS A giant dangling crystal artwork thrown in gratis. |
SPARKLY DETAILS Enough facets to start a fire. |
|
BUY IT AND YOU CAN Pop bottles in the property’s hidden Champagne room. If you can find it. |
BUY IT AND YOU CAN Embed it in your forehead like rapper Lil Uzi Vert, who once had a $24 million pink diamond surgically placed in his face. |
