A Tampa Bay home-owner is about to sell her $650,000 property as an NFT to 'stimulate conversation' about blockchain technology

• A Florida homeowner is selling her house and minting the deed as an NFT, the Tampa Bay Times found.
• The sale should "stimulate conversation" about blockchain technology and NFTs, the homeowner said.

A Florida homeowner is auctioning her five-bedroom house near Tampa as an NFT — and she's taking cryptocurrency only.

Bidding for the Gulfport, Florida, home that features an iron dinner bell in the front started at $650,000 on Thursday. As the auction period ended at 5 p.m. ET, the marketplace tracking the activity showed only one bid for 202.5 ether, or about $651,230.

The Tampa Bay Times, which first reported the story last week, said homeowner Leslie Alessandra chose to auction the Spanish-inspired house as an NFT to display the growing possibilities of blockchain technology.

"Is this just hype or is there a real world application?" she said to the Times. The auction, she added, should be used to "stimulate conversation" about NFTs, which are generally digital pieces of art minted on the blockchain. In this case, the NFT serves as a digital deed to the home. This auction comes with another sweetener: an NFT mural by artist Derek Donnelly, also known as Saint Paint.

Alessandra told the Times this wouldn't be the last time she auctions a house as an NFT.

According to Propy, the real-estate tech firm minting her property as an NFT, she invests in real estate and cryptocurrencies and "believes in the benefits of blockchain technology for both industry efficiency and humanitarian causes."

Last year, Propy minted the sale of TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington's Kyiv, Ukraine, apartment as an NFT in a move that it said showcased "the power of blockchain technology to innovate the real estate industry."

NFTs had a definitive year in 2021, with sales of the digital collectibles soaring to about $41 billion. That is approaching sales volumes in the traditional art market, according to one estimate.

Though the collectibles have mostly been digital, some have been experimenting with selling physical items with ownership minted on the blockchain. Midwest Tungsten, for example, sold the rights to touch a 2,000-pound tungsten cube once a year as an NFT, and Rapper Ja Rule sold a physical painting from the infamous Fyre Festival as a crypto collectible.