Hogeg buys Kfar Shmaryahu land with bitcoin

Moshe Hogeg Photo: Reuters
Moshe Hogeg Photo: Reuters

NIS 10 million of the NIS 70 million that Israeli entrepreneur Moshe Hogeg paid Ilan Ben-Dov was in bitcoin.

As reported yesterday by "Globes", Israeli high-tech entrepreneur Moshe Hogeg, manager of the Singulariteam venture capital fund, has bought a five-dunam (1.25-acre) lot in the prestigious Kfar Shmaryahu community near Herzliya for $19 million (NIS 70 million).

The size of the deal, in which Hogeg bought the land from former Partner controlling shareholder Ilan Ben-Dov, was remarkable in itself, with not many such high-end deals being closed in the past few years. But even more remarkable was the fact that Hogeg, as confirmed by both his own lawyers and Ben Dov's, paid for about 15% of the deal (NIS 10 million) in bitcoin.

In recent years, Hogeg has been involved in many ventures of companies in the cryptocurrency sector. Among other things, he founded the Sirin Labs startup, which develops the Finney smartphone based on blockchain technology. Sirin completed a $158 million initial coin offering (ICO) in December 2017. This financing round, conducted through a sales of the SRN cryptocurrency, was among the largest cryptocurrency offerings in the world in 2017, although it has since lost 75% of its value.

Hogeg closed the deal for the Kfar Shmaryahu land two weeks ago when bitcoin was trading at $7,500. Its value has since fallen by 14% to around $6,600 according to the CoinMarketCap website.

Hogeg is planning to build a home with a swimming pool on the land but has not yet filed a request for a building permit. Hogeg currently lives in the Park Tzameret neighborhood in Tel Aviv.

The real estate deal was one of the largest luxury real estate deals last year; the volume of deals in this market in Israel has fallen steeply over the past two year, among other things because of the taxes levied by the government on foreign residents.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 20, 2018

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2018

Moshe Hogeg Photo: Reuters
Moshe Hogeg Photo: Reuters
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