Condo Investment Insights

A cryptocurrency baron has bought the largest and one of the most expensive condos in Canada, paying for it partly with digital money.

Anthony Di Iorio purchased the three-story penthouse for C$28 million ($21 million) at the St. Regis Residences Toronto, the former Trump International Hotel & Tower in the downtown business district. The unit totals 16,178 square feet (1,502 square meters) and includes a wrap-around patio overlooking the city’s skyline at the corner of Bay and Adelaide Streets.

Anthony Di Iorio Photographer: Cole Burston/Bloomberg
Di Iorio didn’t take out a mortgage for the property because he doesn’t “like being in debt.” Instead, he cashed out some of his cryptocurrency and made a wire transfer to pay the price.

“I don’t remember exactly which ones I cashed in but this is my safety net, real estate right?” he said in an interview with Bloomberg at his new condo. He now owns two condos units in Toronto for a total investment of about C$34 million, he said. “I decided to take a bunch out and put it in real estate.”

The hotel is owned by InnVest Hotels LP and operated by Marriott International Inc. as the Adelaide Hotel Toronto, and will be rebranded the St. Regis once a renovation is complete. Residences in the building are owned by JCF Capital ULC.

Di Iorio got into the cryptocurrency craze on the ground floor as a co-founder of Ethereum. He was active in Toronto’s early blockchain community and was on the initial team that put together Ethereum, now the leading alternative to the Bitcoin platform. Ether, the currency that runs on Ethereum, now has a market value of around $50 billion compared with Bitcoin’s $115 billion. Di Iorio now runs Decentral, an “innovation hub’ in Toronto focused on blockchain projects. It’s the creator of the popular cryptocurrency wallet Jaxx.

The crypto founder has not fully built out the unit yet but is slated to include space for events that highlight Canadian tech and innovation. But he’s in no rush to move in — he’s still living at his current condo in the west end of the city, and doesn’t see himself settling into this new space for at least another year and a half.

Di Iorio may have bought Canada’s biggest condo, but it’s not the most expensive. According to Toronto Life magazine, Peter Gilgan, billionaire and chief executive officer of Mattamy Homes Ltd. lives in a Four Seasons penthouse in the city that was bought for C$31 million. And a condo once sold for C$40 million in Vancouver.

Original link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-20/crypto-pioneer-buys-canada-s-biggest-condo-in-former-trump-tower