$66 Million Building to Be Tokenized on Ethereum Blockchain in Record Deal

For Patrick O'Meara, there is a world of difference between security tokens and tokenized securities.

With a tokenized security, "It's a whole different world," where blockchain technology gives investors an unprecedented level of transparency, said O'Meara, chairman and chief executive officer of Inveniam Capital Partners.

Announced Tuesday, the firm intends to sell tokenized shares of the building, valued at $65.5 million, likely the largest piece of real estate to be financed this way to date.

Once the other three deals are finalized, ICP will be auctioning off shares in the assets, represented by ERC-20 tokens on the ethereum blockchain, the coming weeks.

Shares in the four assets will be sold through what is known as a Dutch auction, meaning potential investors will place their own bids outlining how many shares they want, what price they would like to pay per share and which cryptocurrency they would like to pay with.

In addition to the WeWork building, Inveniam plans to tokenize shares for a student housing facility in North Dakota, which is being valued at approximately $90 million; a North Dakota water pipeline worth $50 million; and a multi-family housing facility in southwest Florida worth $75 million.

Like the WeWork auction, shares from each building will be sold as tokens and can only be purchased using cryptocurrency.

Templum Markets, a token trading platform and advisor, sold a security token representing shares in a Colorado ski resort last year, accepting U.S. dollars, bitcoin and ethereum.

Security token startup Harbor is selling 955 shares in a high-rise building in South Carolina, though each share is only worth $21,000.

Harbor CEO Josh Stein told CoinDesk last November that using tokenized shares allowed the company to more easily track shareholders and verify that they are compliant with relevant securities laws.