Real Estate-Backed Tokens Approved for Sale at US $280 Million

Willmen Blanco
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Real Estate-Backed Tokens Approved for Sale at US $280 Million

Fundament is the first firm that will trade tokenized bonds using the Ethereum blockchain. Tokens backed by real estate are the first to be approved by BaFin.

The blockchain venture Fundament has received the approval to issue Ethereum’s first real estate-backed token bond that can be widely offered to private investors.

The Berlin-based company announced on July 23rd, 2019, that it has obtained the approval from the German financial regulator BaFin, to offer the equivalent to US $280 million in Ethereum tokens. The tokens will be available to private investors anywhere, without restrictions on the minimum investment.

For instance, if investors in Indonesia buy 100 euros in Ethereum-based tokens, they are indirectly investing in commercial properties or real estate in Germany, through Fundament.

A BaFin representative confirmed their approval for the startup Fundament Group. He said that this has been the first time that they have approved a startup on blockchain-based real estate bonds, but not regarding blockchain technology in general.

Since August 2019 Fundament will market standard ERC-20 tokens, popularized by the initial coin offering (ICO) explosion in 2017, which will run on Ethereum’s public Blockchain.

The Co-founder of the Fundament Group, Florian Glatz, said that private investments did not use to require a startup or the approval from a financial market authority.

In March 2019, Inveniam Capital Partners tokenized around US $260 million in four private real-estate and debt transactions, beginning with a building occupied by WeWork in downtown Miami.

Last year, Templum Markets sold a security token that represented shares in a resort, accepting US dollars, Bitcoin and Ether. Besides real estate, companies like UK-based Nivaura have explored the option of token-based debt and capital, which allows trading in secondary markets in fully regulated contexts.

Glatz commented that they had undergone this process with regulators to avoid restrictions. He said that projects are either limited by the minimum amount of investment or by the number of investors.

Compliance Challenges

The Fundament token will be backed by five separate construction projects, three in Hamburg, one in Frankfurt and one in the university town of Jena. The portfolio includes residential, commercial and hotel properties, with a total of 63,000 square meters after completion. The company projects a return on projects between 5% and 9%.

Glatz explained that to comply with the Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money-Laundering (AML) regulations, IDnow will verify the identity of potential token buyers. On average, the seller’s process takes three minutes before the user can buy the tokens.

According to Robin Matzke, another co-founder of Fundament, they will not use an investment bank, but will distribute the assets directly to reduce issuance costs and increase return to investors.

Buyers can pay tokens with Bitcoin, Ether, US dollars or euros. For those paying with fiat currencies, the tokens will be delivered in a cold wallet.

It was hard to adjust the project within the MiFID II structure, a European regulatory framework that was originally written for other purposes.

Matzke said that the startup, delivered in December 2018, was approved last week after about seven months of work. He noted that every two or three weeks regulators return them twenty pages with information that should be changed, which results in a kind of book.

Fortunately, fundament founders had the support of experts in legal and technical matters.

By Willmen Blanco

Violin more Than 200 Years Old Is for Sale Online in Cryptocurrencies

Maria Rodríguez
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Violin more Than 200 Years Old Is for Sale Online in Cryptocurrencies

The seller of the piece of music mentioned he accepts any of these cryptocurrencies as a payment method: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero, Bitcoin Cash or Dash.

Every day, cryptocurrencies gain more strength in global financial markets, as well as in sales of conventional items ranging from cleaning objects to food and services. Recently, through the online platform of classified ads Craigslist, a user postulated the sale of an old violin that is more than 200 years old. Also, the publication mentions that the seller accepts some cryptocurrencies as payment method.

As it is well known, Craigslist is an electronic platform of classified ads which belongs to the online sales giant, Ebay. And since 2017 it has become one of the largest web sales platforms in the world. Since that year, it enabled an option where the seller can indicate that he accepts cryptocurrencies as a payment method for his product.

In a simple way, the platform only added a button in which, whilst the classified announcement is made, the seller can place the option of “cryptocurrency is accepted”. It is known that doing this does not hinder the publication of the article because the sales system does not accept commissions for publications or to process payments for sales on the web. Thus, the website is only a means of dissemination for items for sale. In this way, the option that the seller accepts cryptocurrencies appears for the buyer.

Through information obtained by users, since this platform enabled the cryptocurrency sale option, high-value items have been sold as a R2D2 lego model, valued at $ 250, as well as cargo vans for a value of approximately $67,500; and even a Teddy Bear, valued at about $ 500,000.

Among the latest articles that the platform has published is an old and valuable violin, manufactured by a famous craftsman called Nicolás Mathieu, in Minecourt, a town in France. His elaboration dates from the year 1770, so the violin would be about 249 years old. “The upper part is made of two spruce pieces and has two irregular grain lines. The back is made of a smooth maple door. The rib and the head are made of the same wood”.

It is known that the violin also has some new pieces of high quality, valuing the piece with an approximate of $52,888. The seller promise to give a discount if the interested buyer decides to use any of the cryptocurrencies accepted by the seller. Among the digital currencies that are accepted are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Dash and Monero.

This piece of news is becoming increasingly common in the crypto world because more and more cryptocurrencies take more presence in financial markets and also in stores selling products and services.

Similarly, the popularity of decentralized exchange houses is increasing, new proposals for the creation of new digital assets has been presented, as well as more ideas to use blockchain technology in more and more countries.

By María Rodríguez

Cryptocurrency Market Increased 125% during the Second Quarter of 2019

Maria Rodríguez
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Cryptocurrency Market Increased 125% during the Second Quarter of 2019

Bitcoin’s price registered the greatest rebound on June 18th, just after the announcement of Facebook’s new project, Libra.

During April, May and June, the cryptocurrency market experienced a growth of up to 125%, as it was the case of the most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), whose price went from USD 4.103 to USD 10.888 in only three months.

The increase benefited the five main crypto assets, which includes Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). But Bitcoin led the market.

The information is possible thanks to the figures of the last quarterly report of CoinGecko, which analyses the crypto market, prices, volume and market capitalization, and on-chain metrics.

CoinGecko published the report on its official website and offered a general description of the market status and the main events that occurred during the second quarter of 2019, a time in which “the summer of the crypto-world began to thaw the winter”, as Bobby Ong, co-founder of CoinGecko, in the introduction of the document said.

The graph about the cryptocurrency market shows the dominance of Bitcoin, which grew 10.4% during that period of time, to stand at 65%, whilst XRP (-4.3%) and EOS (-1.3%) lost value. These five cryptocurrencies mentioned on the ranking represent approximately 86% of the general market capitalization.

Influence of Libra

According to the report, Bitcoin’s price registered the greatest rebound after June 18th, when the official announcement about the release of Libra, the means of payment of Facebook, took place.

In addition, with a relatively large margin for the first time in two years, the popularity of Bitcoin had an optimal performance in the finance category according to Google Trends. In the report, it was noted how Bitcoin exceeded “actions” in terms of popularity.

More Exchange Houses

The research also found that the number of cryptocurrency exchange houses also increased during the second quarter of the current year. Now, there are 302. The important aspect is that 87% of these exchange houses emerged in the last 18 months.

In the last quarter, one of the negative results is that cyber criminals managed to subtract more than 7,000 bitcoins for an approximate value of USD 40 million through a single transaction in Binance, one of the main cryptocurrency exchange houses. These rusts or losses were presented in other exchange houses.

In addition to these theft, many exchange houses closed in the first half of 2019, including Quadrigacx, Gatecoin and Liqui. In addition, the Reserve Bank of India forced to close the following banks: Coindelta, Coinome, Koinex, as another negative aspect in the crypto world.

But it also increased the popularity of decentralized exchange houses, new proposals for the creation of new digital assets were presented, as well as more ideas to use blockchain technology were explained.

In this way, the report shows that the results of the second quarter of the year were positive for the cryptocurrency market; therefore, statistics could be similar in the course of the coming months, even when the private project Libra has quickly earned greater recognition than some altcoins.

By María Rodríguez

Crimes with Cryptocurrencies Are in the List of Economic Crimes in Great Britain

Maria Rodríguez
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Crimes with Cryptocurrencies Are in the List of Economic Crimes in Great Britain

As part of a plan to counteract the financing of terrorism and money laundering, this region establishes an agreement of independent actions where it includes cryptocurrencies as a risk factor.

As part of a set of actions that had been planned since January for a better economic control and legislation, the government of Great Britain has prepared a new document that specifies new legal changes to face financial crimes and, among them, the crimes related to cryptoactives.

The document prepared and drafted by Her Majesty’s Treasury, and the Ministry of Interior of the United Kingdom, is a manual which contains the actions that must be taken to counteract the financial crimes that are also linked to cryptocurrencies, including theft, fraud, corruption, bribery and money laundering, among others.

The amendment to the laws related to these crimes is a way to face the new financial approaches that are taking global boom and that seeks to establish a new regulation to attack economic crime in the region. In addition, the amendment helps to establish a better alliance between the British government and private companies, which hope to strengthen their security levels.

The main objective of the plan is to establish a better alternative to the suggestions and regulations proposed by the FATF to deal with cryptographic matters. It is for this reason that through the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), they will impose an action plan against the cryptocurrencies used to conduct money laundering, as well as the diversion of resources due to corruption and terrorist financing.

The plan has the approval of all legal, public and private sectors, such as private companies linked to cryptocurrencies, chiefs of security and public order forces,legal organizations, as well as Sajid Javid,who was Minister ofInterior and the British Parliament member Philip Hammond.

The plan to improve legal resources to counteract financial crimes will start from a set of premises that will set the route for its establishment. Among these premises, the plan to improve the understanding of new technologies is highlighted in order to finally detect the threats that these assets might bring.

Another objective is to ensure that all rigorous procedures and tools at the hands of the authorities are in full capacity for the application of justice, as well as develop recovery methods for financial crimes and, thus, improve crime risk management in all sectors of the country. Finally, another plan is to expand the improvement of transparency systems, with the aim to certify the ownership of legal agreements and legal entities.

In the central context of the legal agreement, it is important to emphasize that despite this is a document that invites to work together to achieve the same objective, an independence is established between the actions of each cooperative. This forces entities and organizations to conduct investigations in order to avoid money laundering and the use of resources to finance terrorism, using cryptocurrencies or fiat money.

By María Rodríguez

The United States’ Department of Defense Will Experiment With Blockchain for Cybersecurity Affairs

Andres Chavez
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The United States’ Department of Defense Will Experiment With Blockchain for Cybersecurity Affairs

The blockchain technology is slated to help the United States of America in a critical area of its everyday affairs: national security. The approach is versatile and powerful enough to make a sizable contribution in that field, solidifying its place as one of the decade’s most important breakthroughs.

As it turns out, the United States DoD (Department of Defense) is looking to develop blockchain-based solutions to enhance its online security, in its constant quest to perfect a strategy to achieve digital modernization.

Private companies in the country have successfully experimented with the distributed ledger, and now it is time for government-related institutions to enjoy its benefits, as well.

A Four Year Roadmap

The information was published by the DoD itself, in the form of a four-year roadmap to apply the blockchain technology. The document is called “DoD Digital Modernization Strategy: DoD Information Resource Management Strategic Plan FY19–23,” and explains the project at length.

Making considerable strides in cybersecurity has become a priority not only for the United States, but also for numerous countries around the world that have understood that all battlefields have migrated to the digital platform. That is where most of the potential threats that may affect a country are now lurking around.

The report also states that the DARPA, which is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (known as the research arm of the Department of Defense) is now investigating the possibility of applying at least two exploratory blockchain projects that focus on digital security.

The Two Projects Being Considered

The first one has to do with the construction, or improvement, of the communication and transaction platform through the use of blockchain technology. The plan for this specific item includes optimizing the communications between units and headquarters, while doing the same between intelligence agents and the Pentagon.

The second blockchain project that the DARPA is said to be working on involves an attempt to come up with an “unhackable” code with the technology, thanks to the model’s ability to collect intel on people that may represent a cybersecurity threat by possible hacking into databases.

DARPA has been considering the idea of hosting a two-day blockchain workshop from the month of February. The branch, allegedly, was focused on going through permissionless consensus protocols.

Enormous Potential for Data Storage

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency emphasized that the data storage field was one in which the blockchain technology had enormous potential. “Technologies for distributed consensus protocols have been revolutionized by their prominent role in cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies. These technologies have dramatic implications for the security and resilience of critical data storage and computation tasks, including for the Department of Defense.”

People in the Department of Defense have been examining the potential impact of the blockchain technology for quite some time now. Last December, DoD officials assessed how the model could help the department respond in a better way in emergencies and situations of disasters.

By Andres Chavez

Spain Seeks to Use Blockchain to offset CO2 Emissions

Maria Rodríguez
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Spain Seeks to Use Blockchain to offset CO2 Emissions

The main intention is to respond the demand of the government, corporate and citizen clients, in order to compensate their carbon footprint.

Spanish companies and consumers seek to compensate, in a simple way, their carbon footprint and also invest in green financial products. For this reason, they rely on new technologies such as blockchain. In this way, the idea is to promote disruptive technologies and projects that aim to mitigate climate change.

The objective of the new uses of blockchain technology is to join the developers of mitigation projects with companies and consumers, without using intermediaries. Investors also know exactly where their money is going and are able to get all the downloadable information about the project.

The new value of using blockchain technology is the decentralization of the carbon market, which will allow companies to offset their emissions by spending 30% less and in a transparent way.

Similarly, blockchain technology would allow individuals to offset their carbon emissions so that they can participate in a market that was previously inaccessible to them. The idea is to have blockchain as a solution that could change the way things are done in carbon markets and the fight against climate change.

A Green Environment

Different startups have tried to shape this similar concept in other markets. DAO IPCI in Russia is an example, or Veridium Lab, in the United States. There are also other carbon market players such as IHS Markit, APX, or SouthPole, which could upgrade their products and services to the blockchain.

The main intention is to respond the demand of government, corporate and citizen clients in order to achieve a “green environment”. Thanks to blockchain technology, companies and consumers will have a simpler user experience, with the transparency and traceability offered by blockchain technology.

This initiative would allow to send funds to the developers of mitigation projects verified by the United Nations (UN), without intermediaries that make 30% more expensive the purchase cost. One of the Apps that seeks to make real this goal is ClimateTrade, which launched a one-month ICO at the end of 2017. That way they were able to finance the second phase of their platform development.

Spain and the Forest Sector

Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of Spain informed that it collaborated with a group called ChainWood, which seek to apply the advantages of blockchain technology in the Spanish forestry sector in order to reduce costs and improve traceability and efficiency in the wood supply chain.

In Spain, there are different collaboration projects for the application of blockchain technology in the optimization of waste management, through solutions that will allow identifying the characteristics and geolocation of the residues to improve their recycling process.

One of the benefits blockchain offers are traceability and transparency to help know the whole process that a residue passes and a follow-up, agreed, safe and unchanged to all agents that participate in the management of waste originated in productive processes. Some of these participants are manufacturers, packaging or distributors.

By María Rodríguez

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