A blockchain-based startup which bills itself as “the future of real estate” has announced that its project has been legalized by Japanese regulatory bodies, including the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission. Ruden Holdings says inaccurate information, poor record management and inefficient processes are currently blighting the property sector – costing businesses time, money and even credibility. Data cannot be shared easily between organizations – and some cases have seen property owners struggle to prove their ownership of a building. The company has a goal of creating digital identities for real estate properties, helping to enhance the quality and consistency of …

The real estate industry has seen significant growth since the recession. With market prices predicted to increase along with millennial demand in 2019, the industry is as welcoming as ever. Although the market is improving, it is still plagued by issues that make the investment process less convenient than it should be. Major drawbacks of the real estate industry Real estate investment has three major drawbacks: the presence of intermediaries, the lack of affordable funding options, and fraud. Agents take up to six percent of the total payment made on a real estate asset. This means that intermediary fees would …

The global residential mortgage market is estimated to be worth $31 trillion. 66 percent of all Americans have a mortgage on their house while in the UK and China it’s as high as 70%. It’s a segment of the financial markets that hits close to home for a large portion of the global population. The average mortgage closing costs would typically vary between 2 and 5 percent of the price of the property, including broker fees, loan origination fees, underwriting fees, surveyor fees, legal fees, and title fees. That means on a house of $250,000, the buyer can expect to …

Kenya’s government plans to deploy blockchain technology to manage a government housing project of 500,000 units, Kenyan news outlet the Star reported Oct. 15. Within the affordable housing program the government of Kenya reportedly aims to build 500,000 units by 2022, and assist contributors earning less than 100,000 Kenyan Shillings ($992) as they cannot afford mortgages. According to the Star, out of the 2.48 million Kenyans employed in 2016 only 77,000, or 3.1 percent, earned over Sh100,000. The Star reports that blockchain technology will be used to ensure the proper distribution of housing to deserving participants in the program and …

American journal Time Magazine has included a blockchain startup in its recent top 50 “Genius Companies 2018" list, published Thursday, October 4. In putting together the list, the magazine asked their editors and correspondents to name "businesses that are inventing the future." Influence and success were among the criteria for the choice. Bitland, a blockchain startup based in Ghana, joined the list along with giants like Apple, Netflix, SpaceX and Domino’s. As Cointelegraph reported earlier, Bitland, founded by Ghana native Narigamba Mwinsuubo, uses blockchain to register local land. Bitland cooperates with local authorities to help record property rights in a …

The Chinese state-owned Bank of Communications (BoCom) has successfully issued $1.3 billion of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) using blockchain technology, national securities outlet China Securities Times writes Wednesday, September 27. BoCom — the fifth largest bank in China according to S&P Global recent stats — used an independently developed platform called Juicai Chain to issue 9.3 billion yuan worth of RMBS, which is approximately $1.3 billion. By using blockchain, all parties participating in the loan are able to track assets, manage cash flow, and perform other business operations. As China Securities Times writes, the use of blockchain will help reduce …

Australian firm Vicinity has announced it will trial a blockchain solution for its energy network. The company revealed this Thursday, September 25 in an official press release. Vicinity – with more than $42 billion in real estate assets under management – has partnered with Australian energy tech company Power Ledger. The newly announced trial is a part of Vicinity’s $75 million solar energy program that is about to start in Castle Plaza – the company’s mall located in Adelaide, South Australia. The new blockchain platform delivered by Power Ledger will reportedly allow Vicinity to manage energy distribution in real time, …

A Russian subsidiary of Raiffeisen Bank International has issued an electronic mortgage using local blockchain platform Masterchain, local business newspaper Kommersant reports Monday, September 24. The document containing data on the parties in the transaction, the credit loan and its duration, and the property purchased was published in a decentralized depositary system (DDS). The DDS is based on Masterchain — a Russian network for transferring valuable data via blockchain — which a group of major local banks led by the Central Bank of Russia has been developing since 2016. According to Andrey Popov, director of the IT department for Raiffeisen …

The Netherlands’ Land Registry is expected to test blockchain technology for national real estate data, local tech platform Computable reported Thursday, May 31. Koen Huisstede, an enterprise architect at the Land Registry, has said that the institution is seeking to understand what the “relatively new” technology means for the property sphere, and expects a blockchain solution will be integrated into its system “within one to three years.” The Land Registry is tasked with overseeing ownership, mortgage rights, and all third-party data related to the national property market, and is reportedly seeking to explore the technical, legal and governance aspects of …

You may think that you have never heard of Laszlo Hanyecz, a Florida-based programmer working for online retail company GoRuck, but you’d probably be wrong — Hanyecz was behind the inspirational purchase of two pizzas from Papa John’s for 10,000 Bitcoin (BTC) back on May 22, 2010, making this week a celebration of Pizza Day’s eight year anniversary. But the transaction did not involve only one person: Jeremy Sturdivant, also known as Jercos, participated in the original Bitcoin pizza deal as the recipient of those 10,000 BTC that he turned into two pizzas. Ever since the fateful first-ever recorded transaction …

The Praetorian Group, referred to as a “Cryptocurrency Real Estate Investment Vehicle,” (CREIV) has filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on March 6 to register their $75 mln Initial Coin Offering (ICO) as a security offering. If the SEC accepts their registration, the Praeotorian Group will hold the first ever SEC-registered ICO. The filing states that while there will be 200 mln of the Group’s PAX tokens on the Ethereum Blockchain, but the company is registering only the 15 mln offered in the ICO. These real estate-backed tokens will be offered for $5 per token, payable in …

The rapid increase in the price of cryptocurrencies in 2017 has led to most people fearing the formation of a bubble and its impending explosion. What people need to fear are the bubbles in equity markets and real estate, not cryptocurrencies. Easy money The genesis of All Time Highs in multiple asset classes can be traced to the 2008 financial crisis. Post the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the ensuing financial mayhem, central banks around the world resorted to quantitative easing - a euphemism for the unrestricted printing of fiat. It was rationalized saying that the wheels of the financial …