What I Learned This Past Week - 10.4.22
Zombie crypto coin project proliferation
I’m sharing with whoever’s interested in what I learn as I try to remain clear-eyed about the opportunities for real estate and web3.
Did I miss important news or a great article this week? In the likely event I did, please shoot me an email (mark@hurstx.com) and let me know!
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This Week’s Musings
With each passing week as I’ve dived into web3, the number of real estate tokenized projects I’ve stumbled on has surprised me. At first it was exciting, but quickly it became concerning as my cynical outlook knew this was unsustainable. But what, if anything, happens with these projects? Given the small cost of operating these projects, they likely remain in a state of limbo for a long time. While reflecting on this this, I happened to catch this chart from Bloomberg. Likely a small fraction, I’d be really interested to see what % real estate makes up of this +12k.
On a somewhat related note, the SEC fined and reached a settlement with Kim K. With the substantial size of the fine, the SEC is sending a clear message to influencers and celebrities that they must disclose any and all payments for their endorsement. If it looks like a security, acts like a security, and trades like a security, then it’s probably a security.
Informative Articles I Read
Bay Area-turned-Miami startup reports over $5B in property transactions, despite crypto winter (Refresh Miami) - Impressive to hear Propy’s platform has transacted over 10K homes via blockchain.
Blockchain-Based Smart Contracts Can Cut Escrow Costs, Prevent Mortgage Fraud (PYMNTS) - Without solving the ‘unfixable mistake’ problem, mass adoption of blockchain based smart contracts won’t happen.
Landshare brings the first Tokenized House Flip to the Blockchain (News BTC) - Bringing house flipping to the masses seems like a train wreck waiting to happen. We saw what happened to Zillow when it tried it’s hand at ibuying.
Propy Offers The First NFT Avatars Designed Specifically for Real Estate and Metaverse Fans (Propy) - The Propy NFT Avatars come with utilities like access to the Meta Agent educational course, owners become members of an unspecified DAO, and receive a ticket to Propy’s Web3 & Real Estate Summit coming up on October 27th in Miami.
Podcasts/Events/Webinars/etc. That I Listened To
Why Japan Will Lead the World in The Metaverse (Agya Ventures) - Crossing my fingers that there will be an English translation of this available as Kunal and Nobu are top-notch proptech investors and I don’t want to miss what they have to say.
Tokenization of Real Estate 101 | Real Estate Syndicator Live - Episode 30 (YouTube) - Intro session of real estate tokenization including an appearance by Laura Pamatian.
Innovative Companies I Discovered
Fractal Property - Fractal is a marketplace platform dedicated to NFTs and backed by physical real estate.
People You Need To Follow On LinkedIn
Geoffrey Thompson - Chief Blockchain Officer at Roofstock
Tony Giordano - Founder & President of the Opulent Agency and Crypto Real Estate Alliance committee member
Alex G. Lee - CEO/Principal Consultant of TechIPm, LLC
Web3 Announcements From Proptech Companies
Revolutionizing Real Estate Transactions Through NFTs: Origin Protocol Partners With Roofstock onChain (BusinessWire) - I previously reported on Roofstock onChain, now we know the web3 tech powering this offering.
Random But Important Things I Stumbled On
Bridgewater Associates founder surrenders control of the firm (Axios) - Ray Diallio is no longer in management at Bridgewater. Passing of the torch moment for sure.
Emirates to train thousands of new cabin crew in the metaverse (ITP.net) - It will be interesting to watch Emirates make good on this promise. We certainly need improvements in the airline industry so hopefully success will convince others in the space to follow suit.