So, Is This The World's First Real Estate NFT?
Is this what the latest class of alternative property assets looks like? What are believed to be the world’s first nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, of digitised commercial real estate have just changed hands.
UK private investor and developer bought the asset — if in the long term, it is actually an asset — from AI innovator, Stak, which provides 99% accurate digital representations of Firethorn’s logistics portfolio.
Stak has produced a portfolio of NFTs, providing Firethorn Trust with ownership of digitised blueprints of its 12 logistics assets, under the Stak Verified trademark, providing Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors-compliant data to inform valuations.
In addition to the NFT, Firethorn also has a bespoke QR code artwork allowing it, and its authorised stakeholders, to access the digital property representation from a mobile phone and other devices.
Firethorn Trust, the privately owned UK investor/developer, has a 3.25M SF UK logistics portfolio across seven sites. Since its foundation in 2018, Firethorn said it has taken an innovative approach to investing in, and developing, commercial real estate — which it now says is set to move beyond the physical environment via NFTs.
Stak’s parent company, Pupil, said it has sold a number of residential NFTs to homeowners across the world. The sale to Firethorn represents, the company says, the launch of an entirely new class of NFT to the market.
“No one else around the world can produce a Spec or Stak Verified NFT of a physical property," Pupil founder James D Marshall said.
"We are able to offer our customers a unique proposition, combining the physical and digital elements of real estate to give them the opportunity to own an NFT that is verified for its accuracy and authenticity. Coupled with our truly ground-breaking ‘Home in Your Pocket’, we are changing the real estate landscape globally and adding a new dimension to a $327T market."
“Transacting with the use of a verified NFT of a physical property through blockchain could prevent fraud, increase accuracy and save significant time and stress when buying and selling real estate, while the possibilities for how we could use NFTs to trade and explore exact digital replicas of real-world spaces online are endless," he added.
NFTs have been growing as a digital asset class since early 2021. However, the shifting and still uncertain regulatory framework creates risks, lawyers warn.
