¶ Intro
We talk about bringing two hundred and forty billion dollars of real estate on chain, Like, what exactly does that mean. We're actually tokenizing every property in Bergen County, and we're
tokenizing the legal instruments and indexing them per property. So now, over time that two hundred and forty billion dollars will be able to interact with the broader tokenized economy that we all know is coming, which will open the door to faster settlements, real time recordings, fractionalization of these assets, decentralized collateralization of these assets, which will bring liquidity, stable, token and crypto based settlements on these assets, all while
maintaining the same trust and legal recognition that underpins real world real estate today.
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includes Ripples, RLUSD. You can earn up to five percent on that stable coin and five point two five percent on USBC. So if you do like to learn more about Uphold and all the great services they offer, visit the link in the description. Hey folks, welcome into the Thinking Crypto podcast. I'm your host Tony Edward and we are recording at Station three in New York's Financial District, and my guest today is Dan Silverman, who is the co founder and co CEO of Balcony.
Dan, great to have.
You, great to be here, Man, Thank you for doing this, Thank you for putting on this podcast. I think that education is really the most important thing in our space right now, and by platforming. You know, leaders in the space, you're really allowing for that education to happen, so appreciate you.
Yeah, man, I am excited to speak with you. And the reason I came across balcony I read the headline earlier this year that you and some other folks were working on tokenizing hundreds of millions of dollars of real estate on chain and Dan, I'm excited to get into the details of that. But let's kick it off with your background. Tell us a bit about yourself.
¶ Dan's background
Sure, So I come from a real estate development background. My family started in Hoboken, New Jersey City in the eighties. My dad just had this vision. He saw that people would be priced out of Manhattan and he started buying and developing real estate right across the river. So, you know, I grew up in that world. You know, that was my career path, and I graduated college started working for him.
He was kind of in and out of retirement at the time, so I ended up starting my own thing, took over his book of business, started my full service real estate company, doing everything from property management, maintenance, brokerage, to ground up development throughout the state of New Jersey.
And given your background in real estate. I'm curious when along the timeline did you come across blockchain and crypto.
So I was twenty seventeen. I remember that at the time Bitcoin had just set a new all time high, which is two thousand dollars, and I was like, huh, that's interesting. I had heard about bitcoin in the past, and this time it really caught my attention, and it was kind of like a funny reason as to why it caught my attention. So the same day that I heard that news, I was listening to Elon Musk talking about colonizing Mars and it's crazy. But where my head
went was like, huh, you know, wait a minute. If we're going to colonize Mars like he's taught talking about, we're not going to have a fiat or gold based currency system there. It'll be impossible to actually ship gold to Mars. It'll cost more to send the gold there than the gold is actually worth or the fiat paper money. It's like to truly have this kind of type one digital currency that's interplanetary, which I know sounds sounds far fetched,
but you know it is. It is coming right. It needs to be this frictionless currency that can move anywhere in the world or even across worlds in a way that has no friction. And that was kind of the first moment that I was like, you know, I should buy bitcoin, and I'm going to look at it with really a real estate mentality. I'm going to hold it for the long term, for that crazy future that I imagine, and I'm not going to flip it if the price doubles or triples or goes one hundred.
X, right, And it's just a great point. You know,
¶ Digital world and Tokenization
the world is becoming more digital, not less. We both have kids, and the world they're growing up in they don't know about necessarily the analog or offline world imersed in online and digital. And to your point, if we're entering the space exploration era of the human history or human timeline, we're not going to be here's a dollar, paper money in space, come out instant settlement on the block.
They were born into a world where bitcoin exists, stable tokens exist, NFTs exist. This will be normal for them as they grow up, you know, completely.
Normal, absolutely.
And then with that revolution, you know, comes the tokenization and putting traditional assets so to speak, if you want to call it that like real estate, light, gold, and other things on chain to allow them to be able to be settled or move faster or transact better.
Right, yep, exactly, and really like, you know, so twenty seventeen I started buying bitcoin. I saw they did the first real estate fractionalization deal that year, so they fractionalized
the Saint Regis Hotel and Aspen. So that was kind of the first thing that caught my attension that maybe there's a crossover between my career and my hobby, which is investing in crypto, right, And I started like really studying what the blockchain does, and I realized that cryptocurrency is an application of blockchain, but there's other applications, and blockchain infrastructure could be applied to the aging real estate structure that I knew is archaic and old school, and
it could fix a lot of the problems that I knew to exist. And then a couple of years later, I kind of like just check mark that in my brain. I was like, maybe, you know, I could revisit this at some point A few years later. It was like ended twenty twenty, I learned about non fungible tokens, and that was like the light bulb moment for me because I realized that real estate is non fungible. Every single real estate deal is unique based on the different attributes
that make it unique. So a real estate deal you know, has different rent role, it has different unit mix, unit count, zoning, location, all these things are unique attributes that make real estate non fungible. So the proper way to tokenize or digitize real estate is with a non fungible token as opposed to fungible token. And furthermore, the d to your home, which is just a flimsy piece of paper that authentic case ownership over your most valuable asset and is also
non fungible. Because every deed is unique, I knew would eventually become an NFT, it would live on a distributed ledger, and you'd be able to transfer ownership in a way that's undisputable.
Yeah, that absolutely makes sense.
And to your point, you highlighted some of the pitfalls or archaic ways that we've done things, and look, at one point in our timeline that worked right, but we keep progressing and evolving and we're seeing some of the areas that need to be improved, and blockchain can certainly solve that. A major issue a lot of people run into is fraud as well when it comes to the real estate industry. So tell us a bit about how blockchain can solve some of that fraud problem.
Yeah. Absolutely, So when you tokenize an asset, let's say a deed, right, it becomes provably authentic. It's a one of one original. So with the rise and generative AI, it's never been easier to fabricate documents and make them completely indistinguishable from reality. So when you have a tokenized deed and it lives on the blockchain and it originated from the governing body that's responsible for housing and maintaining
these records, you could prove its authenticity. And because of that, we're able to over time eliminate things like deed fraud or mortgage fraud.
Yeah, Dan, I have a confession to make, and I hope you know, the prosecutors anybody don't come after me. But there was a point I worked at a mortgage broker and I did a loan processing and I remember some people using some white out on certain things.
Yeah, and then scan it and the photoshop it.
I'm not going to name names, but those things happened. But if you put the blockchain in place, it can help mitigate a lot of that.
Absolutely. I mean we're entering an era where it will be impossible to tell what's real and what's fake if not for the blockchain. The blockchain is this ultimate truth machine, as you may have heard like it referred to, and that's the beauty of it. You can't fake things on the blockchain, and it's never been easier to fake things.
Yeah.
And in addition, do you see a world where you have the counties, the states, and folks like yourself, the realtors and so forth, all connected on a blockchain where there's full transparency, there's no ambiguity. Everybody knows this document is what it is, and we can move it in lightning speed.
Yeah. I mean that's literally our mission to modernize the world's property records and infrastructure, bringing land records and just the entire process of conveying ownership and all the parties that are involved with that process, bringing them on chain. And I think it's going to happen in a way that's subtle, like people aren't going to realize they're using the blockchain. It's just going to be a faster, cheaper, more efficient, more transparent way to conduct business.
And could we see a day where the process is so streamlined and so fast and transparent because we can trust each other. Because it's a blockchain, that I can be in another part of the world and buy a property in New York City and yes, I need to see the three D view in the photos right and know that I want to buy.
It, But I don't necessarily need to be there. I could just do it digitally.
Yeah. Absolutely, I think that blockchain will streamline due diligence, It'll streamline settlements, it'll streamline the title process, you know, doing title searches, which is cumbersome right now and expensive
and takes time. So by streamlining all these processes, it'll still be difficult to settle immediately on real estate because it's a little more complex than you know, other RW ways that are being tokenized, of course, but we can get to a point where there's near instant settlement and there's a very short gap between deciding you want to buy a property and actually closing on it.
Oh yeah, right, the process can maybe be way shorter than it is currently.
Right, absolutely, you know, I think that what people don't realize is there's two steps to the process of actually closing on real estate. There's the settlement and at the settlement and that's when the title agents put together the closing money is es road, title changes hands, legal conveyance happens, and then there's the actual recording of it. So then the package gets sent to the county clerk's office, the deeds get recorded there, and then it officially becomes recognized
as a transfer of ownership. However, sometimes there's as much as a ninety day gap or more in between the settlement and the closing because of these bottlenecks that exist, and that's obviously extremely inefficient and it opens the door for more more realms of fraud.
Then I've been through the process two times buying a condo and in a house. So if we can speed up that process and make it easier, I think it will save a lot of people a lot of stress at yeah time question and make things more efficient for all.
I mean, I've in my real estate life, I've had deals that almost fell through because the day of the closing, you know, someone realized they have to go into the bank to actually do the wire transfer, and the bank is like, hey, you have to set an appointment, come back tomorrow and it's the time of the essence clothes, we need to close today, and they have no way to actually wire funds.
Yeah, and you.
Look at that and you're like, man, the solutions here, stable coins, blockchain and all that, right, you can get that done faster. But you know it's crawl walk run, right, We're getting there now. Earlier this year you the news of Balcony working to get Bergen County properties two hundred and forty billion in properties on the blockchain using Avalanche. Yep, tell us about the details there. Why Bergen County, Why Avalanche as well?
Yep. So I'll start with Avalanche. So there we're building our l one on Avalanche. They've been great partners to us, and they allow you to fully customize your blockchain. So it's never been easier to kind of spin up a blockchain and create your own controls and permissions, which is really essential for when you're dealing with government records. Of course. Yeah, Bergen County, it's the largest county in the state of
New Jersey. You know, being a real estate developer in New Jersey, I have relationships throughout the state, so it was a target of ours. And we met with the county Clerk, John Hogan. His name is I got to shout him out because it's really his leadership that enabled us to get to this point. And sure we realized that, you know, we started working together and we realized that there was a big opportunity there. He's always been at
the forefront of technological advancement. Three years before the state mandated e files, they implemented it in Bergen County and then the state mandated it. So he's always looking out for his citizens and trying to protect them, and he realized that blockchain is a way to actually protect his citizens and their property rights. So we entered into a five year engagement with the Bergen County Clerk's office to
migrate their deed processing onto the blockchain. It's the largest blockchain deed initiative in US history, and the goal is to create a permanent, immutable chain of title that preserves record integrity, mitigates deed and mortgage fraud, and provides real trust and transparency to citizens. So, like I mentioned, you know, the blockchain is this ultimate truth machine. And when you have documents that provably originated on chain from the governing
body that's responsible for housing and maintaining these records. And you have a permanent and unalterable chain of title that can't be disrupted from some natural disaster or by a ransomware attack or hack. And you have you know, authenticated documents that are tokenized and are provably original, and you have this real, underlying source of truth that protects citizens and their property rights.
Yeah.
So you mentioned building that I think avalanche. They call
¶ Privacy on Avalanche L1
it subnets if I'm not mistaken.
Yeah, they used to. Now they call them l ones oh once.
Yeah, So with building your l one balcony, is is that a private chain? So can anyone access the information or is there certain guardrails?
There're certain guardrails. So it's very important for real estate. Of course, when you know, if you're buying real estate, we need to know who you are. So anybody there's certain data that the normal people will be able to consume. Sure, but to contribute data to our network or to claim ownership over your asset, you need to prove who you are.
Or if you're a business like a title company or a brokerage that eventually will be interacting on our network, you need to KYB yourself and we need to know who you are, and that way, when data is being originated from you, we know that it's approvably authentic source.
So are you who are part of the authentication process? Is it Balcony and the.
County, Balcony, the County and chain Link. Actually that's part of our partnership with chain Link, So you know, Balconies in the business of tokenizing real estate. At the asset level, any piece of real estate is composed of its authoritative documents, its ownership records, lean surveys, permits, and other legal instruments. So without bringing all of this on chain, you can't truly have a digitally native asset that could be programmed against.
So in order to bring this on chain and verify it, we partnered with Chainlink. So anytime we source data from one of our government partners like Bergen County, chain Link Oracle will act as an independent validator of source provedance and data integrity. That way, anybody can authenticate the origin and the authenticity of the official record and know that it hasn't been tampered with.
Wow, so it's amazing. As you're saying that, I'm just thinking you're using two blockchain protocols and the reason why I bring that up. Some people are like one blockchain to rule them all, but no, it's going to be a multi chain world. I totally do eight different things.
Yeah. Absolutely. And then you know the cool thing we talk about bringing two hundred and forty billion dollars of real estate on chain, Like, what exactly does that mean. We're actually tokenizing every property in Bergen County and we're
tokenizing the legal instruments and indexing them per property. So now, over time that two hundred and forty billion dollars will be able to interact with the broader tokenize the economy that we all know is coming, which will open the door to to faster settlements, real time recordings, fractionalization of these assets, decentralized collateralization of these assets, which will bring liquidity, stable, token and crypto based settlements on these assets, all while
maintaining the same trust and legal recognition that underpins real world real estate today.
You know, you brought up some great points there, because this foundational layer of putting the deeds and having the documents so they're verifiable is definitely a foundational layer of where you can build on to your point of fractional If someone wanted to fractionalize a commercial building or even some sort of rental property or whatever it is, they can do that because they have the foundation in place
to verify everything. And then people can say, you know, is this indeed property owned by John A or John Doe and all those things that we need to verify. Right, And then to your point, then you mentioned it earlier, we could potentially have NFTs that are like these living documents that say if there are changes to the house, when did it happen, who did it, who is the contract.
In Yeah, we were turning every property into an NFL that becomes his digital vault or vessel for more information. So over time, more information gets compiled in there, and you have a real record of history that becomes permanent. So you know, think twenty years in the future. You have all this history now, so when you're doing due
diligence you usually look at the last two years. Now you can look at everything and you don't need a third party to verify it because you could see where it originated from.
Dan, I can't wait for that, and because I have my own experience anecdotally when buying a property and then you know years are you're like, who installed this thing?
It's not up to code? Right, It's like, but it's hard. Where do you go find that information?
The previous owner is gone, you can't go bother them, and even if you ask them, they I don't know who did it. But if you had an NFT that was logging all these things and people were mandated to log all these things, who's the contractor you use?
When did you do this upgrade? Electrical? What're plumbing?
And that environmental report?
Like stuff like that, right, I could easily go back and say, Okay, this was the source of the problem.
Absolutely yep. And I think that like we're moving towards the world of ton of like all our WA's being tokenized, and I think a lot of these security token exchange platforms are kind of moving away from real estate fractionalization because it's difficult, it's complex. As I said before, it's more complex and tokenizing other RWAs, So they've kind of like moved away from it because there's not much liquidity.
But by doing what we're doing and giving the underlying asset legal authority, kind of creating this provenance layer for ownership records encumbrances and other verifiable data. We're really telling the full story and we're streamlining the process of data.
So in turn, that'll open the floodgates for liquidity. And I think that the future we're heading towards is people being able to trade in and out of fractional property shares right from their phone, the same way that they're trading in out of stocks and crypto on Robinhood today.
Yeah.
I can't wait for that because I'm very curious. You know, well, I give the example I've given to a lot of people is if they tokenize certain properties in Manhattan because it's prime real estate and you know, you get.
The scarce of the aspect. I'm going to buy some of those tokens for those properties because as a long term investment, I mean by hand it out to my kid.
Right, there's somewhat of like a trophy aspect to it, right, Like if you're going to tokenize the Chrysler building, yes, you know you may you may pay more than what it's actually worth because you want to own a piece of it, so it could provide liquidity for developers, and you know, you're you're owning part of a landmark which is pretty cool.
Absolutely, like Empire State Building as well, I'll do the same thing. Yeah, and then the possibilities with this new world token of the token economy and tokenization, you can then put that asset to work with DeFi use it as collateral and all that jazz.
Yeah, exactly, that's where we're headed. Yeah, So it just opens up bring liquidity to an e liquid asset class.
Right, and then not only that, the person who's in some country in Africa or in Latin America who couldn't access any of these things, and like man, I wish I could own real estate overseas, but they don't have a billion dollars or whatever. But if they can buy one thousand dollars of tokens in the Empire State Building, that could be life changing for that.
Yeah, you get your proportionate share of the asset and your proportionate share of the operating income. So it allows a much lower barrier to entry financially for anybody to get involved. Right now, it's so difficult to buy real estate because it's so capital intensive and there's so much due diligence and so much maintenance. But if you have a couple thousand bucks and you want to start building
a portfolio. You could invest in fractional shares of real estate and you could cater your portfolio that any way you want. You could own part of a hotel, you could own part of a commercial building, you could own part of a residential building, and so on.
Right, and then with the NFTs we talked about earlier, you even if you're in one hundred thousand miles away, you're not even going to be able to visit here, right, you can verify everything.
From that NFT. Well, what did they do this month? What upgrades did they make? Who did it and all that stuff?
Right? Yep, yep, streamline due diligence.
Yeah, yeah, Wow, It's just I'm just thinking the smoke is going up in my mind here right, Like, there's so many possibilities here. So it's an amazing feature that's being built here for all these properties. I'm curious about what does the process look like of tokenizing deeds as much as you can share.
Is it a very long Is it going to take years or is it months?
It'll take longer than months, but shorter than years. I mean, we have five years to get this done. We'll have it operating you know, much quicker than that. The difficult part is indexing historical deeds, which has actually been made easier because of AI. So we're able right now, like everything is kind of siloed in different systems and by you know, indexed by book and page number instead of
indexed by parcel. So that's part of our problem we're trying to solve, is indexing deeds properly so you could tell the chronological order of history. And then once we get there, it's about, you know, the go forward, putting new deeds unchained and having them originate from the county directly.
Got it.
And then the the platform that Balcony has built, is this something that you're going to go to other counties even some places in Manhattan or Brooklyn, whatever. And in addition, are you going to like white label this platform to say, hey, the state of Las Vegas, you want to do the same thing, use our platform?
Yeah? Yeah, So we started in New Jersey because that's where we're based out of, but we've already expanded outside. We're working in Wyoming right now, we're working in Virginia,
and we're targeting other blockchain forward states. Funny you mentioned Brooklyn Brooklyn actually has one of the worst deed fraud in the entire country, so it's a problem they need to solve, and so we're looking to go anywhere where the state or the county actually cares about technology understands blockchain, so there's not as much as an education component, and then over time we'll be able to prove our use case and really scale nationally and internationally, because as we
move beyond the borders of this country, we'll find that their systems are even more disarray than ours are here, and they're largely paper based, and when their paper based, they're subject to natural disasters like floods, fires, hurricanes that could destroy these records. And in twenty nineteen, when that hurricane hit Puerto Rico, a lot of their land records were just completely washed away. So there's all these title
disputes now because nobody knows who owns what. So we're trying to preserve these records in a way that's permanent. When you put them on the blockchain, it's like etching them in stone.
Yeah, and Dan, we were talking before the recording.
I saw a brief clip I think it was on Instagram where these scammers they were trying to steal a brownstone from a person that passed away. I think you are familiar with the story. But like the deed, fraud is a big issue.
Yeah, especially in probate cases like you're talking about. When somebody passes away and the family is like unaware of what assets they held, or there's no will set up, it's a golden ticket for scammers to come in and try to assign ownership of the asset to themselves. And like I mentioned before, with the rise and generative AI, it's never been easier to fab documents and it's not
just a ded document. You have to tell a full story, so you could fabricate associated documents, payoff letters, power of attorney signatures, all this stuff that helps to tell a story to commit fraud.
Yeah, so this technology will help stop a lot of that. Obviously, bad actors will find different ways to try to scamp people. With the point is we want to cut down as much of it as possible very minimum.
Yeah. Absolutely. And you know the other thing I mentioned is ransomware attacks. Ransomware attacks are getting out of control. It's becoming a serious problem. A lot of this aging legacy software wasn't built for the threats of today's world. It was built before I was born, even right, So ransomware attacks are increasing by one hundred percent year over year by some estimates. It's costing taxpayers tens of millions
of dollars annually. Hoboken just got hit actually a year ago by a ransomware attack that cost them two million dollars and a lot of sensitive data was exposed. Suff Accounty, New York got hit with a massive attack where their systems literally were blacked out for two months, where nobody knew who owned what and what leans around what property. So it made it impossible to trade real estate.
Wow.
And my fear is that one day it'll move beyond just ransomware attacks. It'll be a foreign enemy adversary that just wants to create chaos. They don't want money, They just want to black out our systems to mess with us.
Oh.
At that point it becomes a national security threat.
Oh. Absolutely.
And I mean we've seen you know, bits and pieces of this in different ways, companies, private companies, public companies.
Getting attacked and data breaches and much more.
And to your point, the technology is going to continue to get more sophisticated to AI you know, look, good actors can build AI tools and agents, and so can the bad actors.
Yeah, you got to fight AI with AI. Obviously, you got to keep up. And I know government typically moves slow, but they have a duty to their citizens, to their constituents to stay up to date with technology and protect their property rights.
Oh yeah, and then look, I know we're a little bit far away from this, but quantum is coming, so it's best we get things in place in this way. When to qui technology comes along, you can quantum proof your blockchain, you know, to.
Meet But if you're not even there yet.
Yeah, you're behind the curve man, exactly. I mean, that's that's where the world's going. We we think we could leap frog a lot of people over from like you know, from paper records straight to the blockchain. So there's you know, this evolution that's happened from filing cabinets to on prem
computers to the cloud now to the blockchain. So we think that you know, a prime target for ours are counties that are still in paper, that are buried in paper, that you know, don't want to go through that gradual process, that want to kind of jump ahead and get right straight to the best technology that exists, Oh for sure.
And then you know, in your you mentioned you were focusing on some of the blockchain friendly states, you know, those that are being a bit progressive on that front. What's it like talking to people in the real estate industry. Are they more open minded now that blockchain and crypto have become more prominent.
Yeah. Absolutely. It's slow process convincing real estate people who you know, like I said, it's still largely controlled by kind of the old school people that don't yeah, that don't like to change. But that's changing now, especially you see that these trends in tradfi. They're realizing that this isn't They're moving from skepticism to implementation because they know that it's cheaper, faster, and more transparent, which means more profits.
And real estate brokers are realizing they could streamline the process, they could get paid quicker, they could settle on properties quicker. Title companies are realizing like, hey, you know, if we put this process on chain, we could actually do our title searches much more efficiently. We'll have less discrepancies, less you know, clouds on title and I think the entire world is going to move on chain, and it's really just like all the industry members moving on chain. It's
not a process that replaces people. It's people that work with the blockchain and AI and technologies that are available to us that will help, you know, shepherd us into the future.
Yeah, and yeah, to your point, it's gonna be a slow process to get somebody these people to get on board. I'm curious, are the like folks like the National Realtors Association, are they paying attention to things.
I think they are. Actually I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I have heard rumblings about it, and I think that they need to do something. They've been hit with a lot of lawsuits lately, and it's becoming much more difficult for brokers to like interact in this world. They're getting attacked and there's like all these things that it's really like state by state as well, like New Jersey I think implemented a rule where you know, commissions have
to be paid separately from the buyer and seller. And there's all these obstacles that are in the way for brokers. And if this industry is going to continue and thrive, they need to embrace through technologies.
Yeah, for sure, And you know, maybe part of the next real estate boom can include this technology.
Just make things easier and more efficient.
For everybody, yep, more transparent.
Yeah, and maybe help the real estate industry to look. I know the markets are very cyclical, right We've seen boom and bus but you know, if they are able to get to even fractionalization, it can open up some incredible investment opportunities where.
People around and it'll open up tons of liquidity.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
I know this is not crypto, but I did want to get your thoughts because this is right up your alley of your expertise. But how do you feel about the real estate market right now? I know rates are are is you in addition to the economic conditions? How people feel? You know, in a recession, should I hold off and buying? But how are things rebounding a bit or are getting worse?
They're they're rebounding a bit. Rates are coming down. You know, nobody has a crystal ball, but we are expecting another rate cut at the next FED meeting, so I think that will be positive. I think that it's still difficult to sell your home because people who are locked in at three percent, where are they going you know, what are they going to buy? Because prices have gone up and interest rates have gone up, so there's a lack
of inventory right now, which is the problem. And more people are rent thing than ever before because it just makes a lot more sense. So I think that the real estate market will continue to ease a little bit and get better as rates come down, and we should see more things open up. And I'm optimistic that that's that's the direction we're headed.
Yeah, I'm one of those people with the three percent rates.
That yeah where you know where you go and you're stay.
Yeah.
I don't know if this makes sense, but I always I envision and I have this ideal thing of like can I transfer my rate over to a new house that.
Will be nice?
Yeah, it is. It is possible to do to sign your mortgage. It's a little more comp It's usually done for like commercial properties, multi family stuff, but it is possible.
Maybe it's something I should look into. Yeah, I talk to you off.
Now. Obviously you're doing a lot of stuff.
You're you're working on putting all these property deeds on chain. What else is on your roadmap as it relates to blockchain crypto?
So that's the big thing. Obviously, we're trying to scale county to county and even we have some statewide initiatives as well once we've kind of we're trying to stay very focused right now because it's very easy to get distracted by shiny objects and there's a million things we could put on chain, but we have to perfect what
we're doing with deeds and leans first, right. We're also exploring some pilot programs with title companies right now, not at liberty to discuss too much about it, but we think that they're a very valuable and important part of the process, and they're actually the front line of defense against against deed fraud, so it's very important to actually bring them into the process as well and work with them.
Yeah, So Dan, that means I'm going to have to have you back on the pod like almost every quarter.
As I'm in, I'm in as you guys.
Make updates because I'm just look, real estate is the world's largest acid class, so putting that on chain. Look, we all need shelter, right, We like, we gotta be living in somewhere we're going to be out and the weather conditions, right, Yeah.
It's important.
It starts with government because they're the ultimate arbiter of land records and ownership records, right, So we realized they needed to come on chain first before we could get the rest of the real estate economy on chain.
Right. So you really, like I said earlier, you're setting that foundational.
Infrastructure that's exactly key pillar exactly. You know, i'd love to get your thoughts on this because we're seeing the Trump administration and I.
Think it was Bill Poulty, if I'm not mistaken.
Part of the housing heads up the housing in the Trump administration. I think he said they want to have crypto be used in mortgages of Fanny Made Freddie mac mortgages.
What are your thoughts on that?
So I believe what he said was that they would allow for you to use your bitcoin or you know, some other crypto as either collateral or be used when assessing your your personal financial statements. So I think that's extremely valuable. You know, I've back in my days before I started Balcony, I've tried to show you know, my balance sheets in crypto and banks are like what am I looking at? Yeah, exactly, So I think that it'll help that process. And also, like with proof of reserves.
You'll be able to streamline the process of doing these cumbersome personal financial searches on individuals because you'll be able to use like zero knowledge proofs to prove your balance sheet without being totally invasive. So I think it's like a very positive step in the right direction.
Yeah. I mean, it's such a validation to your point.
I'm in the same boat years ago if I brought up, hey, I have X amount of crypto?
Who cares? I can't do anything about it.
They're like, oh, it's gonna could crash tomorrow. I don't care.
But now that's changing, and I can imagine if the government's giving the green light here, the big banks when they're issuing mortgages are going to look at the same thing.
Yeah, no question. I think.
Actually, if I'm.
Not gonna saying, JP Morgan recently said they were going to allow or look at their clients crypto holdings and that could be used as collateral.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think all the big banks are going to get on board. I think, like back in twenty seventeen, they put up a lot of resistance and then they realized that there's nothing they could do. It's here to stay and we got to kind of jump on the bandwagon or we're gonna fall behind.
Oh absolutely, So are you seeing demand from people looking to buy properties with crypto?
So actually, it's funny you say that. Some of the title companies we've been speaking to actually have said, yes, there's people that come to us that want to settle in bitcoin or in stable tokens, And I said, oh, cool, Well what do you do And they're like, oh, we turn them away, like we don't want to deal with that. It's a headache. And I'm like, there's going to be a growing need for it, especially with the passage of the Genius Act, like it'll become commonplace for people to
want to settle in stable tokens. We want to set up those rails, and we want to make it easier for title companies to understand what's happening and get involved because there is a growing need for it.
So would you have to partner with like crypto exchanges, like a coinbase for example, to settle escrow and all these things.
Yeah, we'd partner with with like a circle and we'd set up the rails for you know, or there's state issued stable tokens now, So like Wyoming. You know, we're working with Wyoming. We've met with Senator Lummus multiple times. She's amazing. She's really like spearheading a lot of this digital asset legislation that's going in front of Congress right now. And a good great use case for their stable token is for tax payments for settlements, you know, to actually
close on real estate. And we want to set those rails up so that you could actually close entirely on chain, have the transfer of funds happen entirely on chain, and then have those transfer tax payments and recording fees actually get sent to the government on chain, and actually the entire escrow. You know, there's a ton of people that need to be paid at the closing. There's the brokers, the title agents, insurance, there's all, you know, the county.
We could set up a way that everyone gets paid instantly over blockchain rails. Now it takes we to you know, settle everything. Oh so just streamline the you know, flow of payments.
That would be nice.
Dan, I guess that having gone through the process and waiting for a disc check.
To Claire and blow up.
Oh yeah, it's horrible, right.
But if we can be instantly.
Whatever it is US DC or Wyoming stable coin doesn't matter, as long as it converts to the US dollar.
That would be amazing.
Absolutely.
So you you mentioned like crypto legislation, what Senator Lummus and so forth has been doing. Obviously a lot of people are waiting for the Clarity Act, the Market Structure bill we mentioned the Genius Act got passed. You know, what are your thoughts on what the market structure the impact the Market Structure Bill will have on the industry and innovation and things like that.
I think it'll be enormous. I think it'll allow institutions to understand what we're doing. It'll bring real clarity to the space, and it'll give regulations, which is what we want. We want those regulations. I was actually in d C when they passed the Genius Act. I worked with Stand with Crypto, which is coin bases advocacy group that you know, helps to foster positive legislation and help educate senators and congress members and whatever. And the thoughts up there on
the hill, the sentiment was very inspiring. Everybody was inquisitive. They all wanted to learn a lot of them you know, we're just learning, like had no clue, no like foundational understanding of blockchain, but they knew that it was here to stay and it's become a bipartison issue. Both sides care about it now and they want the United States to be a leader in this technology. So it's really inspiring seeing this come from the federal government. We're obviously
working more with like state and local governments. It's starting to trickle its way down, but it's super important what they're doing right now, and you know they're they're really going to help, you know, keep blockchain companies inside of the United States.
Yeah, that's a key point in keeping them in the United States because there was a period of four years where people.
Were, yeah, ye're fleeing is scary.
Yeah, that was rough times, man, But yeah, we.
Were working in the space at the time. We were trying to convince governments to go on chain right after the FTX collapse, and there was a ton of skepticism. They're like, oh, are you guys a fraud? Are you gonna scam us? And whatever. So there's a lot of education that needed to be done. That's why I thank you at the top of the podcast, is it's so important. Education is key, it really is, because there's so many misconceptions around blockchain, and it's the same thing with any
new technology. There's going to be people who use it and people who abuse it, and that doesn't mean that the technology is inherently bad.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
You know, I like to remind people about the early days of the internet, Right, it was first used by the gambling people, the adult content people, but then eventually it became the way we communicated with each other, the way we do commerce and get our content and all these things. But if you looked at it in early days and some of the headlines, remember some people are saying the Internet wouldn't be greater than the fax machine stuff like that, and it's like, really, yeah.
I watched the old videos of like Bill Gates trying to explain it and like a late night show and everyone's like what but there's like a fax machine and there's a telephone. Why do you need that?
Yeah? Yeah, And it's just you know, it's a human element, right, is psychology like change, It is hard for people. Sometimes we get settled in how things are and it's like hard to imagine a world different and then something that's new that we don't fully understand.
It scares us. You know, we have the natural reaction like I don't know about that.
Yeah.
Absolutely, So I feel like Crypto is going through that, but it's getting better. And you know, one of the ways that I feel is going to help Crypto get more visibility, more awareness is tradify. I mean all of them are here, Dan, the big banks, the Wall Street firms, and they're building, they're tokenizing.
Yeah, yeah, I love to see it. You have people like Larry Fink, who's the CEO of Black Rock, talking about how every asset, every instrument will be tokenized. We're moving towards this world of twenty four to seven trading, of efficiency, of you know, cheaper costs and transparency, and
you know, I'm all about it. And that's why we've kind of raised our hand and said, you know, we'll we'll take the tough task of bringing the governments on chain and creating that legal foundational level to make everything else flow.
Oh yeah, yeah, And that's such like I said, real estate the world's largest acid class, right, and we need all need shelters. There's no way to avoid that. This is something I need to go unchained. The process needs to get better, and you guys are certainly leading you know the charge there, Dan, great stuff, man, I love it, And like I said, We're gonna have to do more interviews because.
I'm open man right across the river. Yeah, anytime.
We're very close. So I got some wrap up questions
¶ Wrap up questions
here for you. Sure, First, if you could create your own metaverse, what would.
The the be so kind of like I guess a boring answer, but I would literally just recreate the physical world in digital space because then it would be easy to find the geolocations of a property, walk around it, do a virtual walk through, actually put offers in streamline your due
diligence right there from the luxury of your couch. So I would just you know, take all the properties were tokenizing, put them in the metaverse, and make it like this big, you know, digital marketplace to actually buy real estate.
Dan. I think I feel like that's on your roadmap balcony roadmap.
Possibly because if you think about it, that's something I've thought about too, Like if I could be immersed, Like let's say I want to be it's someplace in Japan, and I don't I don't know Japan that well, but I can go pinpoint a location I'll be staying, Like, walk around and see what it looks like.
Anders, I know what to expect.
When yeah, you know what's in the neighborhood. You know, if you're right next to a giant telephone pole or whatever. And then they already have great three D walkthroughs. I'm sure you've seen them, like Zillo whatever. You could actually walk through the apartment and see it. So we're getting to a point where you could you could have a full immersive experience within real estate and you could look at let's say you want to go look at ten
different properties. It's very difficult to do that in an afternoon. Yes, now you could do it.
Oh yeah, and then check out the neighborhood and you know, and it's it's with the blockchain technology, with AI and so forth, it's real time immersive and it's just a different experience. I know what to expect whether I'm looking to buyer property or going on vacation, I know what
to expect and that that's really helpful. Yeah, absolutely, rapid fire questions favorite food steak, I'd say, I don't know if you've ever been to Dino and Harry's and Hoboken when you when you were there, but great steakhouse.
I highly recommend.
I have dad brain these days. I didn't remember, Like I don't remember what happened last week with my daughter, but I think I've been there.
I'll double check with my wife. But yes, taking my favorite as well, favorite musician.
Or band Lil Wayne. I'm I'm a hip hop guy.
It's a favorite movie.
I would say Interstellar. I like sci fi movies.
That's one of my favorites as well.
Favorite book, staying in the same vein, I would say Hyperspace by Michio So it's about higher dimensional space string theory and it's really just like I read it and it opened my eyes to the possibilities of our universe and kind of just hooked me. And you know, it's pretty cool understanding these like theoretical but possibly true underpinnings of how the universe actually works and opens your mind to higher dimensions the multiverse, like all all this cool stuff.
I'm very into that stuff too, So I'm gonna check that out.
Yeah, we do a whole other podcasts on that.
And when you're not working, what are you doing for a fun.
So these days, I'm a dad of too, So you know, between that and running a startup, there's I don't have much free time. But lately I've gotten really into running, so I go to the gym every single day for at least an hour. I run, I lift a couple times a week, hit the sauna and steam room, and while I'm doing it, I listen to books on Audible or podcasts just to learn more about what's going on. So it's kind of like killing two birds with one stone,
you know. I get I stay healthy, and I'm able to learn while i'm doing it.
Oh yeah, I'm the same way I hit the gym, I got my pods in listen to a podcast or audiobook.
So yeah, good stuff, Dan.
I love what you guys are doing, and certainly this is the future, and I feel like maybe five years from now we'll look back at a conversation like this and like, look at what's been set up.
Yeah, I can't wait. Thanks again for having me, Yeah, absolutely, thank you