Got $28M In Bitcoin? This NYC Office Building Could Be Yours

Will that be cash, credit or bitcoin? 

An office building at 111 W. 24th St. is on the market for $28M, and the property owner is willing to be paid entirely in cryptocurrency if the buyer so chooses. It is currently the only commercial property in New York City known to accept bitcoin as payment. 

“We'll take USDC. We'll take bitcoin. We’ll take ethereum,” said Okada & Co. CEO Christopher Okada, who owns the building. “We're open for business.”

Okada bought the 47K SF NoMad building in 2021 for more than $16M, according to property records. In 2022, he listed it on nonfungible token marketplace OpenSea for $26.5M where it was hailed by Web3 pioneer Grant Gerber as “unironically one of the best use cases of NFTs.” 

But the property didn't sell — the NFT market crashed just weeks after it was listed, Okada said, and interest rates started aggressively rising soon after that.

Now, the crypto market is expected to pick up under the Trump administration. Following the election, the price of bitcoin shot above $100K for the first time.

President Donald Trump launched his own token during his campaign. Since winning the election, he has added pro-crypto advisers to his Cabinet and signed an executive order creating a working group on digital assets.

Creating more of a regulatory framework is expected to grow the crypto markets, as well as making it easier to trade digital currency for more nonliquid assets like real estate. 

“I was a Web3 guru a couple years ago when NFTs were center stage,” Okada said. “We're just embracing digital currency.”

Accepting bitcoin isn't the only unusual way that the brokers listing the building, Serhant Commercial's Jade Shenker and Bernadette Brennan, are trying to find buyers for Okada.

Earlier this month, a New York Fashion Week show by the designer Guvanch was held in the building. For the activation, trees were brought from upstate and hand-painted. A feng shui consultant has also come in to bless the seven-floor building.

“There's so many commercial properties on the market right now, and it's almost like you have decision fatigue,” Shenker said. “If you see something and you're like, ‘Wow, this has a little bit of personality, this is interesting,’ investors see that value.”

The property has already received two offers despite being on the market for less than a month, she said. It is sandwiched between two high-rises: the 42-story Motto by Hilton and the 37-story Chelsea Stratus condo building.

In addition to the office space, 111 W. 24th's ground floor can be used for retail. Although there are some tenants in place, a portion of the building can be converted to residential use, the brokers said.

Ryan Serhant’s eponymous brokerage is known for its use of social media as well as its Netflix show, Owning Manhattan. That includes its relatively new commercial arm, led by Brennan. 

Brennan and Shenker said that using platforms like Instagram has allowed them to tap into younger buyers and family offices that may not typically stumble across the property through traditional channels. 

“When we think about office buildings, we go on the computer, we go to LoopNet, and we search ‘office,’” Shenker said. “It’s a different way of seeing an office building through Instagram, because you see it activated. People see it in a positive light.”