In a recent medium post, Blockimmo announced that their first Swiss property is now “live” on the blockchain. In Baar, in the canton of Zug. The first property was tokenized via the transaction platform of blockimmo — based on blockchain technology. The trade volume amounts to around CHF 3 million. The first real-estate transaction was made possible by the combined efforts of three Zug companies blockimmo, Elea Labs and Swiss Crypto Tokens. Elea Labs supplied the complete, validated data for the property and Swiss Crypto Tokens enabled the transaction with the ‘CryptoFranc’, a stablecoin linked directly to the Swiss franc.
‘I am delighted that we were able to pull off this premiere, the first property transaction through blockimmo. The platform is the first secure blockchain product for both private and professional investors,’ explains Bastiaan Don, founder and Managing Director of blockimmo.
Tokenizing is the process by which the real asset value of the property is represented digitally on the Ethereum blockchain in token form. This new financing and investment method is a product of blockimmo. It aims to be the global marketplace for tokenizing property. Bastiaan Don:
Don adds, “Traditional property investments and their issuing programmes have barely moved forward. In Switzerland, you have a non-transparent market with asynchronous information that is difficult to access. This has a negative impact on the liquidity potential of the real estate market. By using blockchain technology, blockimmo enables a solution to a problem, representing a paradigm shift for real estate ownership and trading.”
Around CHF 3 million, or 20 percent of the property value, was tokenized before being sold to four investors in a club deal. The tokenized property is located at Grabenstrasse 3 in Baar, in the canton of Zug, and consists of 18 apartments and the ‘Hello World’ restaurant. This makes Baar the site of the first property in Switzerland that also has a ‘digital twin’ on the blockchain. The four transactions were carried out on the Ethereum blockchain and can be verified on the blockimmo platform.
The transaction was supported by Elea Labs, which provided the real estate data of the property. Elea Labs aims to ensure that each building has its own identity or “Property DNA”. This makes the property real — all data about a property is backed up and stored decentralized.
“With the decentralized property register Property DNA we enable users of the blockimmo platform to make a sound investment decision based on complete and validated property data. In the future, the Property DNA will enable a transparent digital due diligence and will also simplify, accelerate and reduce the cost of processes across the entire real estate industry,” explains Martin Schnider, CEO of Elea Labs.
Price fluctuation risks of cryptocurrencies are eliminated by the implementation of ‘CryptoFranc’, a ‘stablecoin’. The transaction was supported by the crypto broker Bitcoin Suisse, through its subsidiary Swiss Crypto Tokens. For the property in Baar, the investment was carried out with the digital Swiss franc CryptoFranc, or ‘XCHF’, from Swiss Crypto Tokens. Last November, the company launched a digital token pegged to the Swiss franc, of which it has issued CHF 15 million to date. The CryptoFranc serves as a liquidity instrument for the Swiss blockchain ecosystem.
“With the stablecoin CryptoFranc, we have developed a key piece of the puzzle for the Swiss blockchain ecosystem. Blockimmo has utilised this instrument perfectly to realise the future of real estate transactions. Here, one can see a brilliant implementation of the way real estate will move between parties in the decades to come, purely on the blockchain.” explains Armin Schmid, CEO of Swiss Crypto Tokens.
Following this initial step, blockimmo is planning to tokenize further properties that will then be sold by means of a ‘public crowdsale’. All property tokens are expected to be listed in the second quarter of this year on a regulated exchange, which will further improve their fungibility. The blockimmo team is working on a decentralised exchange known as STX.SWISS, which forms the basis for a new system for tokenizing, investing and trading.
