As of the time of this writing, the small cap crypto Propy (Pro) is valued at around $0.75 (75 cents) per token and has a market cap of around $13 Million, according to coinmarketcap.
The Problem with Real Estate Today
Today the International Real Estate Market is hindered by inefficiencies such as:
- Slow Transaction Times
- Time Consuming Property Rights Registration
- Too Many Intermediaries
- Lack of International Standards
- Local Property Rights Registries are Susceptible to Fraud & Tampering
- National & Local Rules for Property Deeds Registration & Transfers
Propy's Solution
Propy's engineering & development team is in the process of building out Propy's Registry and DApp. According to their Whitepaper, the long-term goal is -
Ultimately, the Propy Registry will make it possible for every single step of a real estate transaction, from the buyer’s reservation of the property to the signing of the purchase agreements for the delivery of the title deeds, to be recorded on blockchain and executed with smart contracts.
The purpose of the Propy (Pro) Token is stated in the Whitepaper as well -
the use of PROs will be necessary to access the services provided
in the Propy platform, as it would act as:
• A uniform method of settlement for interacting with Propy Registry,
which reduces time delays and independence from any particular
fiat currency.
• A decentralized registry requires some barrier to entry to initiate
transactions, otherwise the Propy network would be overloaded
with unnecessary records. The usage of PROs is crucial for the
network in order to prevent spam.
Notable Team Members & Advisors
There are some great team members and advisors who bring experience from real estate, blockchain, finance & business development:
- Natalia Karayaneva - CEO
-> Real Estate Developer, 12 years of experience working with foreign investors, built 3 companies. Software Engineer and Oxford Grad - Maria Angelova (CFO)
-> Former CFO of BNP Paribas - John Wong - (VP, Business Development China)
-> Former VP of Wells Fargo SF; 20 years of investment experience in Chinese technology and consumer companies - Denitza Tyufekchieva (VP, Business Development Europe)
-> A blockchain advocate, croudfounded real estate platform for the Eastern Europe region - Michael Arrington (Advisor)
-> Founder of TechCrunch - Jeremy Gardner (Advisor)
-> Cofounder of Augur, Former VC of Blockchain Capital
Challenges Propy Faces Ahead
After skimming through the Whitepaper, there are long term steps to achieve the ultimate vision of making Propy the go-to cryptocurrency and platform for making simple P2P cross border real estate transactions and property rights' transfers. As such, there is a long way to go and a number of iterations and test markets that Propy will go through first (Starting with California & Vermont, US & Kiev, Ukraine as Pilot Regions). Since blockchain technology is also so new and disruptive, along with the time it will take Propy to develop its technology and gain adoption it will also take time for governments around the world to get comfortable with having decentralized property registries.
For more information on their plans for the short-term and mid-term technology, I recommend you read the whitepaper, as it is quite extensive. It goes over how they plan to first adapt to the regulatory and legal real-estate environment in different countries (starting with the US) & also use fiat currencies before making changes towards further decentralization and using Propy (Pro) tokens whilst rallying governments to adopt the Propy Registration as a singular decentralized blockchain platform.
Concluding Thoughts
In 2017, the global real estate market was worth $217 trillion and made up more than half the value of all mainstream assets worldwide. It is no surprise that real estate is the largest asset class in the world today. However, it is too illiquid and purchasing and selling properties in real estate should be made easier in the digital age. Propy's competitors in digitizing real estate transactions would be Trulia and Zillow (However, it should be noted that these are currently limited to US RE Markets & do not utilize blockchain technology). The benefits of using Propy would be the option of using cryptocurrencies to purchase RE, having transactions and property rights stored on a cryptographically secured ledger and access to international properties.
I think Propy's vision is a very long-term plan and it will need to start gaining traction in jurisdictions that it becomes available to and have an increasing amount of sales' volume funnel through the platform. We would also need to see governments comply with Propy's goal of decentralizing global property markets and using the Propy blockchain registry as opposed to current national & local registries. I believe that ultimately, Propy has a high chance of succeeding and we can see further adoption from governments and users of the Propy DApp, Registry & Blockchain which would increase the value of the PRO Token. I think that it will also be on a larger time horizon and may take 4-5 years from now to start taking off than many other cryptocurrencies which may start exploding in valuation sooner (2-3 years from now). If Propy is successful in inevitably capturing even a small portion of the growing largest asset class - the Real Estate Market, it can have a very nice return for early investors.