We're establishing cooperative relationships with various companies that provide blockchain-based tools and services. A prime example of this is Ubitquity, a company that's using blockchain tech to keep and manage real estate records like titles, deeds, registrations, and event histories. One could think of it as the "CarFax" of real estate. We believe strongly in having representatives from such companies involved with Cryptacademy because one of our major goals is to show our students the vast array of applications for blockchain tech in their daily lives beyond just that of a currency.
I recently interviewed the President and CEO of Ubitquity, Nathan Wosnack, hitting him with a blizzard of questions on behalf of my real estate development, Fort Galt, and this is what he had to say.
image credit: CoinTelegraph
As a real estate developer, why should I be using your service? Why should I want to put my properties on the blockchain?
Well, since you're building brand new properties, Ubitquity is an easy sell as we're able to easily create a clean record of ownership. We currently face many problems with record keeping, multiple municipalities creating a bottleneck effect of record transfer, and long waiting periods, UBITQUITY™ is a solution to many of these issues. Of course it relies on the user adoption, but that's why we've decided to start with local areas and small municipalities.
Today it's provided a parallel recording system that has increased confidence and transparency while reducing future title search time. Think of the UBITQUITY platform as containing a distributed digital health record of your property. And we've seen fantastic results.
Thus far, we're earning the interest of all kinds of title and record companies as well as respected universities looking to us to provide internal and external business solutions. We're working with incumbent players and trade groups to adhere to industry best practices/policies and to form brand new ones.
What sort of costs are involved?
The cost is generally minimal with a standing licensing fee and our users can expect a nominal per-recording fee to cover records being added to the blockchain.
Can you tell me about some projects your team have already serviced? Case studies I can look to for examples perhaps?
Sure. First, there's Brazil. In April of this year we were contacted by a representative of the Real Estate Registry Office by the name of Rafael Mezzari. He and his staff we looking at ways to replace the existing software vendor they have there. Rafael, having an IT and computer security background was aware of blockchain technology. After discovering Ubitquity as the first blockchain-secured platform for real estate record keeping with an easy to use interface, he felt we were a great first choice.
The existing system with the land registrar offices have a major problem; they've discovered information supplied by their vendor is returning incorrect information about who owns what property. We're the solution to help those land records evolve into the future, adding an important layer of transparency and reassurance to the people along the way.
We also have stealth projects and pilots in the United States, including one large jurisdiction within the United States that we hope to be able to mention soon, legally recognized by the land records and record of deeds. We have active discussions with a few other state representatives, early recordation discussions with clearing and settlement companies.
Ubitquity also has the support and interest of a couple of the four largest title insurance companies in the United States. As of late September, the final version of our case study with Blockchain@UBC isn't out yet but we anticipate a release for October/November, which we'll share on our web-site and social media.
This week, after about 10 months of work, the Global Blockchain Benchmarking Study conducted by the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance in the UK was released and we were added to the corporate acknowledgements.
Have you been in the media much yet? Any upcoming events we should know about?
This week I had the pleasure of being interviewed by CriptoNoticias ( article here ). Last week, Marina Reznik, Adrianna Mendez, and I made our first appearance as a group on Austin Texas based The Crypto Show ( podcast link here ). We were on for an hour and twenty minutes discussing a broad range of topics. My friends Justin and Stacie Frost were also guests and it was incredibly entertaining, if I do say so myself.
In terms of our public appearances, in November I'll be on a panel at an important national real estate event with our adviser Avi Spielman and another special panelist that's yet to be announced. We'll be discussing what blockchain technology is and how it factors into the future of real estate. We'll have details on this on our web-site and social media in the coming weeks.
*Are you reaching globally or are you starting with a smaller market first with plans of expansion?
Given that we're a registered company in Delaware, we started with the U.S. and then branched out to South America. We also have our finger on the pulse of other places worldwide and are in active discussions.
What sort of team do you have now? Are you actively seeking more talent to build it out?
In addition to me, there's Marina Reznik, who did the first property ownership transfer recording in June 2016, and Adrianna Mendez, our VP of Marketing. We also have Christian Saucier, who developed our initial platform as Technical Adviser, and Jared Boice, a digital media consultant. Our advisers consist of real estate experts, computer scientists, financial experts, and a technology journalist. There's also Avi Spielman, who I mentioned earlier, Joe Lamontage from Priority Title & Escrow, Dr. Michael Frank, Blake Anderson, Patrick Dugan, and Sam Reynolds.
We're also in the midst of hiring some contracted North American based UI/UX devs. We're always looking to add people to the team who can bring a unique skill set and interest in blockchain, crypto, and real estate. Anyone interested in joining us can contact us by e-mail ([email protected]).
What advantage do you have over any would-be competitors in the market?
First and foremost, we have extensive experience in the real estate, title/escrow, and blockchain tech space. We've received a lot of feedback on our pricing model from e-recording and title industry incumbents. We're using a blockchain-agnostic protocol called Colored Coins. Colored Coins also is a more mature protocol that has existed for several years which supports multiple blockchains and comes with a readily-available infrastructure.
When transactions occur, all relevant information about the property is automatically recorded on the Colu stack, which is already inter-operable with UTXO based blockchains like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Hyperledger, and Multichain. In the coming weeks, we're looking to experiment with the use of ChromaWay's "Postchain" at Ubitquity Labs in an effort to stay on top of innovation while still maintaining our Colu API/Colored Coins-powered platform. ChromaWay are good friends of Ubitquity and are a solid infrastructure provider.
What's the best place to start for anyone that might be interested in learning more about you and your services?
We'd suggest starting with our website and then our social media and our YouTube channel, which has conference presentations that we've participated in within the last year.
And there you have it. A shining example of a company that's using blockchain technology to provide solutions to an industry in serious need of an upgrade. It's exactly the sort of thing we'll be showcasing at the Cryptacademy, once it has been built and we'd like to invite everyone else with similarly relevant tools and companies to contact us to establish a similar relationship.
Sounds like some good tools in blockchain tech for real-world solutions.
It's great to see the mention for hiring. Steemit could be a great way to connect people to work on blockchain projects.
Absolutely. We really want to help bring talented people together to foster innovation in the field.
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