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unsplash-logoMarkus Spiske 

Property Token, a joint venture between Creahaus and Espace Invest, two Luxembourg property firms, said they issued the first “Luxembourg real estate token” in a press release issued on 23 July.

The tokens were issued to “a club of private investors” and represent “rights attached to a high-standing building” in Belval. The real estate developers did not reveal exactly which property was involved in the transaction. The press release stated:

“The future real estate program that will be ‘tokenized’ has already been identified and will be made public before year-end.”

Blockchain is the same technology behind cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, but real estate tokens are unrelated to virtual money.

Earlier this year, Laurent Collet of the consulting firm Deloitte told Delano in an interview that blockchain technology was particularly attractive to real estate investment funds because it could help draw in new investors and simplify administrative processes.

According to this week’s Property Token press announcement:

“Through this securitization project, token holders were able to determine the size of their initial investment (the minimum was set at 1,000 euros). The rents and the eventual capital gain when reselling the property are automatically allocated in proportion to their contribution.”

Property Token further stated:

“In the future, several token exchange places that are developing will allow investors to buy and sell their tokens at any time, making real estate investment as liquid as stocks or bonds.”

Property Token said its tokens were developed with the local consulting firm Inno and that “the tokens are securely stored in a ‘zeroelectronic’ physical vault provided by Coinplus,” a startup at the Luxembourg Technoport. The transaction was completed “in partnership” with Tokeny, a startup at the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology.