Blocksquare, the leading tokenization infrastructure provider for the real estate industry, has partnered with Dubai-based real estate company Arms & McGregor International Realty to launch the region’s first real estate tokenization platform directly connected to a DeFi liquidity pool. The new platform will open the way for trading, owning, and liquidating property assets through trading digital tokens in the GCC region.
Denis Petrovcic, the Co-Founder & CEO of Blocksquare, announced the venture by saying “With this partnership, property owners in the GCC region will for the first time gain the ability to extract liquidity from DeFi markets simply by uploading their real estate property to the blockchain. It also opens up a new liquidity generator to fund ambitious mega projects as traditional funding may fall short and not be as feasible.” Petrovcic added “Since 2018, Blocksquare’s focus has always been to offer clients the best blockchain infrastructure for the tokenization of real estate assets. With our real estate tokenization protocol launched in the region through Arms & McGregor International Realty, entrepreneurs can start digitizing real estate assets at a fraction of the cost.”
Through this collaboration Blocksquare is increasing their access and exposure to GCC real estate assets ahead of their launch of Oceanpoint — a DeFi platform enabling property owners to lock-in real estate tokens issued through Blocksquare’s tokenization protocol and extract liquidity through compatible Automated Market Making (AMM) protocols like Uniswap or Balancer, opening access to real estate financing everywhere. Oceanpoint will connect the $9.6 trillion global investment market of professionally managed real estate and the $80+ billion DeFi space.
Makram Hani the Founder & CEO of Arms & McGregor International Realty, said, “The GCC real estate sector especially in the UAE has proved its resilience and overcame major challenges since the 2009 financial crisis and the recent pandemic. With the launch of the new property tokenization platform, we aim to revolutionize the way property developers fund and sell projects; that will enable them to retain control over their projects. Property owners will also be able to sell portions of their property and liquidate the necessary rather than the whole asset. “
In the UAE, new regulations are being regularly introduced to boost the real estate sector. Working closely with key public and private stakeholders to adopt the new platform, Blocksquare and Arms & McGregor International Realty believe that tokenization will mark the start of a new era for the real estate sector, where each property will have its own smart contract and the evaluation of properties is driven by an open secondary market rather than paper-based reports. By expanding its operation into the GCC region, Blocksquare aims to support innovative real estate companies integrate blockchain technology and tokenization into their businesses.
Although the transition may seem complex at first glance, it is fairly straightforward. The reality is that these solutions are the present and no longer the future. Hani, who will also be joining the Blocksquare team as a real estate market specialist for the GCC region, contends that they are recreating nothing, rather than getting methods used traditionally with other asset classes similar to equities and doing what is needed to transform real estate 6.0 into an Ultra asset class. Both he and Petrov?i? believe that more and more real estate properties will move “on-chain” in some form or another, while this trend will increase demand for companies such as Blocksquare to facilitate the process in a safe and standardized manner through tried protocols and infrastructure.
Hani mentioned “Through our collaboration with Blocksquare and other partners we intend to get other stake holders in the market to launch their own platform and grow the ecosystem that is being built. We not only want to launch our own platform but also help other market players launch their white label platforms and tokenize their own property.”
“Real estate is the biggest asset class in the world, at the same time, it’s one of the most illiquid investments one can make. While it is time consuming and extremely capital intensive, technology will address such challenges. With the emergence of smart contracts and blockchain, we now have the ability to create autonomous agents and protocols that can provide a transparent service for everyone involved in the lifecycle of a real estate transaction. Transfer of ownership will inevitably move online, however, the first step will happen on the investment part, as it is the one that requires the least input by regulators and can be fully executed without significant changes to current regulations,” Petrovcic concluded.
Photo by Christoph Schulz on Unsplash
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