Win ‘world’s most expensive dinner’ for $2 thanks to cryptocurrency

World of Diamonds Group | Swissôtel The Stamford

Dinner guests will be hosted at their choice of five-star hotels: Swissôtel The Stamford (above) or Fairmont Singapore, for a three-night stay in a presidential suite.

Take for example, Maecenas, a company looking to create “the first open blockchain platform that democratizes access to fine art.” It raised over $15 million in October 2017 with its ICO, according to TokenData. Its tokens, which can be used to invest fractionally in art pieces were issued at 51 cents each and as of mid-December were trading for around 74 cents.

Oehman, who also manages a newly launched cryptocurrency investment fund, points out that the world’s most expensive painting sold at auction, da Vinci’s $450 million Salvator Mundi, was purchased by its owner just four years prior for $127 million, a 254 percent increase. Over the same time frame, a more attainable investment in an index fund tracking the S&P 500 would have returned just 60 percent, though the art market is volatile and largely unregulated, unlike index funds.

“Of course [expensive art] is completely out of reach for most people, but it doesn’t change the fact that that market is very interesting,” Oehman says, adding that the blue diamond market in particular has seen returns just as impressive as the art market in recent years.

At a Christie’s auction in May, a 4 carat blue diamond ring sold for nearly $9 million, or over $2 million per carat. Extrapolating from that price point, Oehman says that would put the Jane Seymour ring he bought in October 2016 “at over $4 million.” However, estimating the price at which a diamond will sell at auction depends on many factors — for example, Oehman’s diamond is rated lower in clarity, indicating slightly more imperfections than the diamond auctioned at Christie’s.