Competitor Analysis: Real Estate Asset & Other Asset Tokenisation

The investment industry is being disrupted by the emergence of blockchain and distributed ledger technology (‘DLT’), which is paving the way for a more efficient and transparent market without the need for middlemen. Assets previously characterised as illiquid, i.e. real estate, are now becoming freely tradable. Transactions can be settled almost instantly and without counterparty risk. Investors will soon be able to freely invest in real estate from anywhere in the world, no matter how big or small the investment, within minutes instead of months.

This is made possible through the process of tokenisation — transforming illiquid assets, such as real estate, into digital tokens. These tokens, which represent the underlying asset, can then be bought or sold freely without the need for notaries, conveyancers, or even lawyers. By bypassing this costly and time-consuming “traditional” process of transacting assets, tokenisation streamlines and discounts property transactions, making ownership more inclusive.

Newcomers to the tokenisation space abound, but which ones merit our consideration?

Newly minted blockchain companies often ride on the wave of publicity generated by outlandish claims about the potential returns to be made by early backers. Investors are especially susceptible to this, as they often fail to understand the actual tokenised product being offered.

There are multiple reasons as to why investors can, and often do, fail to evaluate a target investment opportunity properly. A topical discussion of this area is beyond the scope of this article, however, it can be noted that the relatively new nature of blockchain, the technical complexity, and rapidly changing legal environment governing it contributes to the difficulty in performing evaluations of cryptocurrency investments.

This comparative overview has been prepared in order to facilitate an objective evaluation of emerging players in the blockchain market.

Each competitor was evaluated and ranked using the following criteria:Legal structure (or lack thereof), token model (economics), the team (management, developers, etc.), published code (GitHub, etc.), partners, asset pipeline, roadmap, and more.

Written by: Alex Papachristoforou, LLB (Hons) Law, LLM in International Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, LPC University of Law.

Table of contents:

*Top competitors:
 Brickblock
Polymath
Digix Global
Harbor

*Tier 2 competitors:
Jibrel Network
Blocksquare
LAToken
Swissrealcoin

Top competitors:

*Brickblock

Brickblock stands out as one of a select few competitors committed to delivering a working project with a fleshed-out economic reasoning and legal framework.

Brickblock’s stance is that investors using its smart contract platform should be able to invest seamlessly and without any additional technical barriers. It enables users to invest in tokenised assets with Ethereum (‘ETH’), and with fiat currency and other cryptocurrencies within a year. The ERC-20 Brickblock token (‘BBK’) is set-up to reward those who contributed to the Initial Coin Offering (‘ICO’) by giving early-backers free access to the platform and a chance to profit from the platform’s transaction fees. The asset-backed tokens are called Proof-of-Asset (‘PoA’) tokens and legally entitle the owner to the economic benefits of the underlying asset.

Throughout the course of this research, Brickblock gave the impression of being the first project to get tokenisation “right”. Unlike many other projects in this sphere, Brickblock’s asset-backed tokens represent an enforceable legal claim on the profits of the underlying asset (e.g. real estate).

In contrast, without a contractual agreement, asset-backed token holders place their faith in a third party for the delivery of the asset. Should the third party fail to deliver the asset, token holders lack a means of legally enforcing their rights in a court of law.

To read more : https://medium.com/@iceincup/competitor-analysis-asset-tokenization-ecfbd045c4ee