Morgan Chittum

<div id="highlights-block_620a991ad3971" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The NFT sale could “turn into a standard in the [real estate] industry,” according to a blockchain startup executive</li>
 <li>The NFT can now be used as collateral for crypto borrowers and lenders</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



A Florida home was auctioned off as an NFT (non-fungible token) — a potential first for both real estate and cryptocurrency.



The Gulfport four-bedroom house sold for $653,163 of ether, and the winning bidder now holds the NFT, signifying ownership on-chain.



Propy, a blockchain real estate startup, hosted and facilitated the sale.



“This is just the first seller in our pipeline and we&#8217;re seeing a lot of demand,” Natalia Karayaneva, chief executive of Propy, said in a statement.



The home’s property rights were minted as an NFT, Karayaneva said, which cuts down on closing time. The NFT holder will own the property via a limited liability company (LLC) that houses the crypto asset.



The real estate-backed token can be used as collateral for crypto borrowers and lenders.



Roughly 50 people <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/02/12/nft-florida-home-sale-ether-crypto/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">signed up</a> to bid in the auction — verifying their identities per the platform’s requirements. However, only two people actively bid in the sale.



Propy previously <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210525005839/en/Propy-Auctions-World%E2%80%99s-First-Real-Estate-NFT-with-Ownership-Transfer" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sold</a> TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington’s studio apartment in Ukraine for roughly $113,176 of ether last year.



The NFT sale could “turn into a standard in the [real estate] industry,” Karayaneva said. “NFT sales reached $4 billion in December 2021, and real-world assets will soon represent a significant portion of that market.”



Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) enforcement attorney Braden Perry <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/nft-home-sale-has-1500-bidders-lining-up/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told Blockworks</a> that real estate has a “huge upside potential” when it comes to NFTs and blockchain technology at-large.



But the US regulatory environment, Perry said, “lags innovation” to adapt to it.&nbsp;



“The [real estate] title process is ideally suited for streamlined and protected recordings on a blockchain,” he said. “But the regulatory system is still new, and there are a lot of questions regarding the government’s role in crypto.”



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