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For real estate, blockchain could unshackle investment


A blockchain industry alliance has released a guide and list of use cases for deploying the technology to enable, among other things, the purchase of fractions of real estate property as digital securities on an open marketplace.

The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) used its 30-page Real Estate Use Case document to promote blockchain as a more open, transparent and traceable method of transacting in the multi-trillion dollar realty industry. The document was created by the EEA’s Real Estate Special Interest Group (SIG), which was created a year ago and has already garnered more than 50 member companies.

Among the member companies are blockchain software developers such as ApplicatureBlockapps and ConsenSys, as well as Deloitte LLC, John Hancock Life Insurance, Ott Capital Ventures, and online blockchain-powered real estate platforms Propy and Blockimmo.

Bastiaan Don, chair of the EEA’s Real Estate SIG, began developing his Swiss-based Blockimmo marketplace a little over a year ago. Like a stock market with corporations, Blockimmo users can purchase, sell or trade portions of real estate properties that have been turned into digital tokens on a global marketplace that runs 24/7.

On March 1, Blockimmo listed its first tokenized property – an apartment building with a restaurant – with a value of 15 million Swiss francs ($14.8 million). Twenty percent of the property’s value was converted to “Swiss Crypto Tokens,” with transactions  enabled through the use of the “CryptoFranc,” a stablecoin linked directly to the Swiss franc. The tokens sold to four investors.

Real estate blockchain Blockimmo

Property data hashed on the an Ethereum blockchain using an Interplanetary File System (IFPS)

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that, unlike bitcoin, are linked to fiat currency, such as the U.S. dollar or Swiss franc. They’re expected to become increasingly popular as a vehicle to tokenize (digitize) assets, such as property that can then be bought or traded on blockchain exchanges. For example, J.P. Morgan recently created a stablecoin to transfer funds over a blockchain network internally and internationally between institutional clients.



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