Crypto Billionaire Behind $45M UWS Townhouse Sale

A cryptocurrency company appears to be behind the Upper West Side’s most expensive townhouse sale.

An entity tied to Brendan Blumer, CEO of the crypto company Block.one, which was behind a controversial $4 billion token issuance in 2017, paid $45 million for the Upper West Side megamansion at 48-50 West 69th Street, The Real Deal has learned.

The LLC, MI 8787, was also behind a 2024 purchase of a $40 million waterfront spec mansion at 40 Palm Avenue in Miami Beach, which set a record for Palm Island. Property records show that a 2025 tax refund following a $45 million sale that year was issued to an address in the Cayman Islands tied to Block.one, Blumer’s company.

In New York City, the same LLC was the buyer of a 4,500-square-foot penthouse at 505 West 19th Street for $21 million in January, property records show. The three-bedroom, three-bathroom condo has a 3,400-square-foot rooftop and a deeded parking space.

Compass’ Maggie Wu, who worked on the buy-side of the deal, denied that Blumer was the buyer, and said instead the property was purchased by an “investor” who plans to lightly renovate and re-list the property later this fall.

In March 2025, an Italian newspaper reported Blumer was behind the most expensive home sale in the country’s history after he paid $172 million for a 28-room Sardinian villa.

The estate spans 5.7 acres and has over 1,000 feet of water frontage on the Romazzino Bay and access to two private beaches. Previously owned by Henry Ford II, the grandson of Henry Ford, and Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, a Saudi oil minister who played a large role in creating OPEC.

The townhouse purchase set a neighborhood record, even at a nearly 50 percent price cut from its original $85 million asking price. The massive home originally hit the market in March 2024 and made waves with its astronomical asking price for the neighborhood, before being taken off the public market a few months later.

The previous record-holder for a townhouse sale on the Upper West Side was at 248 Central Park West, which sold for $22 million in 2022.

French businessman Pierre Bastid and his wife, jazz singer Malou Beauvoir, bought the adjacent homes for a combined $24.5 million in two separate deals that closed in 2011 and 2012. The couple tore down the previous structures and undertook an expansive construction project that was so bothersome to the neighbors that it elicited more than 2,000 words in a 2019 article in the New York Times about the noise and debris.

The Times estimated that construction costs could run as high as $100 million at the property.

The 19,600-square-foot home has five bedrooms and 11 bathrooms across eight stories that are connected by a limestone floating staircase, along with a commercial-grade elevator.

The 38-foot-wide parlor floor has 24-foot ceilings and opposing wood-burning fireplaces. The garden level has an indoor-outdoor wellness space, including a 55-foot indoor lap pool. The full-floor primary suite spans over 2,000 square feet with a wood-burning fireplace and a south-facing terrace. The home also has a penthouse lounge with a wraparound terrace, wet bar and skylight.

Despite the extensive renovations, the home’s asking price had always appeared to be a stretch for the neighborhood and the property, which still lacked distinctive features of similar homes on the Upper East Side, like a grand limestone or Georgian facade.

Compass’ Jim St. Andre, Trevor Stephens and Michael Maniawski had the listing. St. Andre did not respond to a request for comment.