What I Learned This Past Week - 5.17.22

Going deeper down the rabbit hole

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

It was a wild ride in the crypto markets last week with billions upon billions of value disappearing with the collapse of Terra. Headlines abound that crypto is dead. (haters gonna hate). To make matters worse, the broader markets also tanked and the R word (recession) is on the lips of many experts as they seem similarities to 2000 and 2008.

It’s going to be a wild ride so strap in and hunker down!

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Informative Articles I Read

• Is Algorand The Top Blockchain For Real Estate Tokenization? (Liberty Real Estate Fund) - Solid primer on fundamental blockchain concepts and the application of this to real estate.

• What Is The Real Value Of Property In The Metaverse? (Modus) - Does location, location, location get replaced by content and customer experience? Will we have meta appraisers determining this meta value?

• Bored Ape’s Creator’s Next Windfall: Selling Land In An ‘Open’ Metaverse (Financial Times) - Overwhelming demand for virtual land deeds spiked gas fees and crashed Ethereum.

• Investing in NFT Real Estate (The Motley Fool) - Good overview of the current use cases and limitations/risks of this emerging investment opportunity.

• NAR Assembles Group To Explore Cryptocurrency’s Impact On Real Estate (Inman) - Given the rapidly increasing % of house transactions already involving crypto, this group’s creation is late in coming and the timeline for delivering the report is too long. Agree with the need for better educated crypto real estate agents.

• Real Estate Starts To Use Blockchain For ESG Goals (Commercial Observers) - Using blockchain to provide proof of carbon reduction progress as new responsibilities for real estate players and their portfolios emerge.

• Housing3 (Mirror) - Tokenizing real estate by applying blockchain and smart contracts.

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Podcasts That I Listened To

• How Crypto & NFTs Are Invading Building Materials & Why It Matters to Manufacturers (Smarter Building Materials Marketing podcast)

• Chip Ridge, Millennial Title Company (Crypto X Real Estate podcast)

• FIBREE is launching the Real Estate and Crypto podcast - first episode dropping May 17th (today!)

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Innovate Companies I Discovered

• OwnProp- Tokenizing real estate assets on the blockchain.

• Earth - Distributive house collective.

• Lofty AI - Tokenized real estate investing marketplace.

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People to Know (Those I Met Or Connected With Who Are Much Smarter Than Me)

• Samuel Huber - Founder & CEO of Admix

• Theo Priestley - CEO of Metanomic

• Susana Esteban - CEO of X-VERSE Group

• Antony Slumbers - CEO of Real Innovation Academy

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Web3 Announcements from Proptech Companies

• Livly to Accept Cryptocurrency for Apartment Rent Payments

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Random But Important Things I Stumbled On

• Web3 Is Our Chance To Make A Better Internet (HBR) - I’m a fan of Li Jin and share her concerns that web3 is already showing signs of compounding the inequalities created by web2

• Mirror - A web3 toolkit.

• Vessel - A passport for the internet (digital wallet and identity rolled into one), relevant for web2 and web3 environments.

• Coinbase Admits Users May Lose Crypto If Exchange Goes Bankrupt (Fortune) - No FDIC for crypto exchanges.

• A DeFi Platform Got An S&P Credit Rating For the First Time Ever (Fortune) - While certainly progress for the crypto industry, the B- rating equates to “junk”

• Crypto Certified Real Estate Agents - It’s a thing. I see Propy offering this designation, anyone know of others?

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