Tokenized Securities and Commercial Real Estate

46 Pages Posted: 20 Aug 2019 Last revised: 1 Sep 2019

See all articles by Julie Smith

Julie Smith

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management

Manasi Vora

Independent

Hugo Benedetti

ESE Business School - Universidad de los Andes, Chile

Kenta Yoshida

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management

Zev Vogel

Independent

Date Written: May 14, 2019

Abstract

The following research investigates the application of security tokenization to commercial real estate assets. Primary research through interviews was conducted to uncover some of the most salient use cases and blockchain benefits for the space. The report explores three domains of blockchain application to real estate: (1) the application of blockchain to securities issuance and trading, (2) the application of blockchain to the real estate investment value chain, and (3) the application of blockchain to the representation of the physical assets themselves. Overall, we find that the value creation provided by tokenization can come in several layers, with some standalone benefits emerging by applying tokenization to each of the three domains in isolation. However, significant synergies can arise from combining these layers. As integration increases, additional features become possible. Our conclusion offers a general framework that can be used to perform future research on the tokenization of other types of assets and their related securities.

Keywords: Blockchain, CRE, commercial real estate, distributed ledgers, fintech, proptech, securities, smart contracts, tokenization

JEL Classification: G10, G20, G30, R30

Suggested Citation

Smith, Julie and Vora, Manasi and Benedetti, Hugo E and Yoshida, Kenta and Vogel, Zev, Tokenized Securities and Commercial Real Estate (May 14, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3438286 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3438286

Julie Smith

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management ( email )

100 Main Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
United States

Manasi Vora

Independent ( email )

Hugo E Benedetti (Contact Author)

ESE Business School - Universidad de los Andes, Chile ( email )

Av. La Plaza 1905
San Carlos de Apoquindo, Las Condes
Santiago
Chile

Kenta Yoshida

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Sloan School of Management ( email )

100 Main Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
United States

Zev Vogel

Independent ( email )

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