A friendly reminder that all the ECOBANK updates ever published can be seen reblogged on the @ecobanker account - @ecobanker, we have stolen the domain for other purposes for the time being, a "side project" you might call it. The professional blog has been moved to the blog. subdomain: https://blog.ecobankdevelopment.com.
Speaking of side quests, honestly a lot of good things have been happening, we are currently working with a few clients, including the eMediaLibrary team, and you can expect to hear more about that soon. Our non-Ecobank tourism has hit some good repeat business, as the local University has just reserved two more dates for their students, after a first very successful visit to our Buena Vista Farm.
Base case - still Valid
Our base case for the ECOBANK was that, especially when "crypto" is high, we should be "responsible investors" and take some profits and buy hard assets, such as land and other productive cash-flow producing assets, in the real world. We have done that, although we are specifically really weak on the "cash-flow producing" part of the equation.
But, we have learned a lot, and after much deep and meditative thought about it, think that we are still on the right track. We have assets, and they can be made to produce cash-flow. Its not "easy" or "passive", but we still want to do it. And we still think that Colombia is a great place to do it in, which is good because our active and available manager @ecoinstant (me!) lives there and has insider knowledge of the region we are invested in.
What assets do we have?
First, we took our token raise in 2021 and purchased 50% equity of an already operating Hotel called "Casa Lago". We are in the process of selling at least our 50% to the current neighbor, Hotel Los Ocobos. No progress was made while we were in Guatemala, but all involved parties are in agreement that this is a good and necessary move, although our current partner is not yet decided if he wants to sell his half of the property along with ours or "hang on" as silent partner instead of active manager.
I expect to have more news about this moving forward this month.
We also have 8.2 hectares of prime roadside land in Lerida, with an open offer to buy more of the 80 hectare property from member @juan.manuel. We have talked about it a lot, and we have decided not to enter the fund directly with more "land4tokens" deals, but instead structure a win-win deal which we will announce this year if everything lines up - or just leave it on the table for later if everything doesn't line up. There is no rush, and to this we are both in agreement.
Tourism Training
Additionally worth mentioning, your beloved manager (me!) just went through a 6-week crash course on hotel-based tourism in Guatemala, where I am happy to report we learned a lot. Not just "a lot", I mean something like "I couldn't have bought this information and experience for $10,000". It was a happy side benefit of participating in the HIVEHub Hotel experiment, we got a subsidized masterclass on what its actually like to "administer a hotel" and all it cost us was our time and energy. An amazing deal, if you ask me.
This will also yield more fruit, in terms of more posts, decisions and announcements, "soon" - especially after @ecoinstante, @juan.manuel and myself have a chance to meet and debrief. But simply put for this update - I think a "hotel" might be one of the least "passive" options we have available to generate cashflow for our properties.
Cripto Latin Fest
The ECOBANK team will be in full force at Cripto Latin Fest, where HIVE has a booth and @ecoinstante, @juan.manuel and myself will be - talking to real Colombians about real uses for cryptocurrencies. Real uses like the ECOBANK token, a tokenized stock in a real Colombian company.
There is quite a bit to do to get ready, but we are home, and we are on it!