As a fresh graduate, I have started to learn about personal finance and how to divide my salary for different types of investments. The problem faced by a fresh grad is that, I do not have a lot of money to invest. I would very much like to invest in real estate but the entry point is simply too high. Besides, I am always frustrated by the high fees that I have to pay to the brokers while buying stocks or ETFs. I also had the chance to spent more than a year in China for my studies and I realize that there are a lot of investment opportunities there. However, the rules are strict and it is very difficult for foreigners to get involved.
Thanks to blockchain technology, I now have the option to invest in cryptocurrency, which has no minimum investment, no geographical restriction and lower trading fees. Nevertheless, I am careful with the amount I invest in because cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile. My portfolio chart looks like a roller coaster!
Luckily, this project, Brickblock has come under my radar because it is trying to solve all the problems that I have stated above.
What is Brickblock?
Brickblock is a DApp built on top of Ethereum, where you will be able to use cryptocurrency to invest into real-world assets like real estate and stocks. Through tokenization, real-world assets can be move onto blockchain while keeping its fundamental characteristics.
The advantages of Brickblock are clear. Using the Smart Contracts, most of the operations can be automated, therefore Brickblock will be able to bypass many third parties and offer a much lower fees for its users. Moreover, since the tokens issued by Brickblock are 100% backed by real-world assets, investors will be able to enjoy the stability of traditional markets. Another benefit of Brickblock’s platform is the accessibility. Different types of physical assets from all around the world can be listed in the platform and every user will be able to invest from their cryptocurrency wallets, which are not controlled by banks.
How does it work?
Brickblock’s platform will involve 3 types of ERC20 tokens, Brickblock Token (BBK), Access Token (ACT) and Proof of Asset Token (PoA).Brickblock Token (BBK): BBKs are the tokens which will be distributed to you if you invest during their ICO. You will be able to buy or sell BBKs in cryptocurrency exchanges in the future. BBKs will be used to generated ACTs.
Access Token (ACT): By locking BBKs into access token contracts, ACTs will be generated. The concept of ACT is similar to the gas in Ethereum. ACTs are used to pay fees to operate Proof of Asset (PoA) contracts and they will be destroyed upon use.
Proof of Asset Token (PoA): PoAs are security tokens backed by physical assets. In return for every fund you invest, you will receive equivalent PoAs, which represent a legally enforceable claim to the underlying assets. When the assets grow in value, all the PoAs holders will receive dividends through self-executing PoA contracts.
There will be 4 types of funds available in the platform: real estate funds (REFs), exchange-traded funds (ETFs), passive coin-traded funds (CTF) and active coin managed funds (CMFs).
Team
Jakob Drzazga, the co-Founder, was the CEO of a private real estate development company in Berlin, for 5 years.Martin Mischke, the other co-Founder, has also founded some amazing blockchain-based companies, such as Bitwala, the biggest blockchain-based payment service provider in Europe. He is also the CEO of Transistor Coworking, Germany’s largest FinTech coworking-space.
Their CTO, Philip Paetz is from McKinsey. He is currently the Digital Expert and external advisor of McKinsey Digital Labs.
The advisors of Brickblock has a very strong background in real estate, finance, banking, investment management and blockchain.
Ingo Weiss has more than 15 years of experiences in real estate investment. Before founding his company, Weiss & Cie. Group, he had leadership roles at two Fortune 500 companies, CBRE, the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm, and Jones Lang LaSalle.
Partnership
It is good to see that Brickblock is able to establish more than 10 partnerships, from different part of the world.Intercam Banco is a commercial bank, with more than 70 branches across Mexico. Through this partnership, tokenized ETFs from Intercam’s portfolio will be accessible in Brickblock’s platform.
Blocks Investment, based in Prague, is a marketplace for real estate securities. Brickblock will help them to integrate the blockchain technology into their business. At the same time, Brickblock will be able to list Blocks’ properties in the platform.
Brickblock has also announced partnerships with two of the largest real estate developers in Brazil, RFM and TRX. Both of them has over $2 billion of assets under management.
Token metrics
The ICO is separated into 3 stages. The first two stages are already finished and Brickblock has raised around $4.5 millions. The funds have been used to build the team and develop a MVP. The 3rd stage will start on 9th May and run for a week, or until the hard cap is reached. The purpose of this stage is to raise enough funds to develop the platform and expand the portfolio of assets. Of course, all the unsold tokens will be burnt.Token: BBK
Price: $0.60 at stage 3 ($0.40 during private sale, $0.43 at stage 1, $0.48 at stage 2)
Hard cap: $50M at stage 3
Total supply: 500M
Available for sale: 75,5M at stage 3 (51% of total supply, 255M are for token sale contributors)
Market cap: around $130M
Summary
Brickblock’s platform will gathered the benefits from both the traditional trading market and the modern cryptocurrency market. It will allow people from all classes to invest in real-world assets from different parts of the world, using cryptocurrency, with low fees. Small investors like me will finally be able to buy a small portion of château in Europe!+ Experienced leadership team and advisors
+ More than 10 partnerships established
+ Unique solution to real-world problems
+ MVP available
+ 3 years vesting period for the team
- High hard cap and market cap
- Competition from other asset-backed cryptocurrencies (a clear analysis of their competitors can be found in the whitepaper)
Website: https://www.brickblock.io/
Telegram: https://t.me/brickblock
Twitter: https://twitter.com/brickblock_io
Github: https://github.com/brickblock-io
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BrickBlock/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brickblock.io/
Bitcointalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3345519.0
Medium: https://blog.brickblock.io/?_ga=2.12613687.1299581861.1518004356-2032467665.1515675497
General Whitepaper: https://www.brickblock.io/Brickblock_General_Whitepaper.pdf
Technical Whitepaper: https://www.brickblock.io/Brickblock_Technical_Whitepaper.pdf