To help foster intelligent conversations and stories around the future of finance, HackerNoon has partnered with Bricktrade to host the Future of Finance Writing Contest. Here, we speak to Bricktrade Founder Guv Kang about how his company is contributing to the future of real estate, defi, and more.
This Slogging thread by Jack Boreham, Guv Kang, Limarc Ambalina, August Kim, Mónica Freitas, SuperSaiyanProgramming, Sara Pinto and NotTheRealElonMusk occurred in slogging's official #amas channel, and has been edited for readability.
Hi, @channel please join me in welcoming Guv Kang from Bricktrade
https://bricktrade.co.uk/ allows you to own a part of a property via fractionalization & tokenization, without the hassle of deposits, mortgages, credit checks, and all the usual paperwork.
While being the 1st in the UK to accept both crypto & fiat, providing low risk, asset-backed yields 🚀
You can ask Guv anything about:
- What is Bricktrade & What can you tell us about the project so far?
- How is the team's experience suited to the project, ad what partnerships have been established?
- Do you have a roadmap for the coming year?
- What is the benefit of acquiring and holding $BRKT, and how does it serve as a utility in the platform
- What are the unique features of Bricktrade?
Hi Guv Kang great to have you with us. To start off, lets dive into bricktrade. What is it, and how did it start? 😄
Hi Jack, Thank you for having on, great to be here
Thanks Jack Boreham Bricktrade is a real estate tokenization platform, delivering fractional investments and property ownership by accepting crypto and fiat.
Our mission is to revolutionise property finance and investing. Bricktrade is a property tokenisation platform, that utilises the power of the crowd to raise construction finance for property developers. Investors will also have the opportunity to buy fractional parts of the finished units from the developer once they have been built. They can then choose to rent or sell the unit, which we can manage all in house.
I have been working and owned a real estate agency in the Docklands, London (uk), a premium real estate agent located in London’s Docklands - http://www.waterfronts.co.uk for more than 15 years. My experience in the sector is real estate sales, lettings, asset management, redevelopment projects, property investment, fundraising and managing relations with housing authorities.
My co-founder for both Waterfronts & Bricktrade is Mandeep Kang, also my wife over this time; She has in-depth knowledge of property, finance & mortgages for over 15 years with institutions and banks, residential and commercial mortgages, underwriting and funding.
Jack Boreham
In this time we have seen;
- Property prices increase exponentially, where average people cannot afford the average house, needing large injection of cash.
- Interest rates for saver at an all time low
- Property developers having trouble raising finance for their property projects
These problems were long term economic problems and there needed to be better access for individuals to be able to enter the property market and developers to be able find an alternative route to finance.
We could also see the rise of blockchain technology and started researching tokenisation and fractionalisation. Once our research was complete we were convinced we could make a real difference to this space and decided working to establish Bricktrade.
Hey Guv Kang thanks for joining us. Who are Bricktrade's main competitors in the space?
Hey I've never heard of bricktrade before but I took a quick look at the website and seems interesting!
Thank you August Kim we will accept investment in fiat or crypto.
Although BRKT Token Holders will have many benefits such as;
- Early access to projects
- Get bonuses from their investments
- Early access to our property raffles - we will hold raffles where they can win a property debt free!!
- Rewards for staking
I'm interested in the logistics. How does the fractionalization work?
Does Bricktrade pay for the property outright (because most properties and real estate agents probably won't accept 100+ owners of a property) and then divide the % of ownership among everyone on the platform? Or how does that work
Great question Limarc Ambalina Fractionlization is the process of representing equity in an asset, company or debt. It allows Bricktrade to split up assets into smaller portions for individuals, companies and institutions to invest into.
Bricktrade uses a proprietary structure to make this a reality, by using the correct corporate and compliance structuring we can have many shareholders in bricktrade's fractionalised products.
So Bricktrade will do this in three ways;
1. Property developers can approach Bricktrade to raise their construction finance through crowdfunding, instead of going to the bank for this capital. Providing they meet our strict criteria process, we will hold a charge over the company which owns the site and then publish the debt/loan (with all the related documents such as planning approvals, company ownership details etc) to our crowd and raise the funds. Each investor will receive interest for their investment (asset backed making it low risk) in tokens or fiat. At the end of the term the developer repays the original loan amount, to be paid back to our investors.
2. As we will be working closely with the developer, we will offer to sell the units they are developing to our crowd/investors fractionally, by utilising our proprietary legal structure and contracts. Once the property is complete our partner company Waterfronts can let and manage the property, as long as the investors want to hold on to it. Now each and every fractional owner is a property investor, this is how we will lower the barrier to entry for millions of people, globally.
3. On ready built assets we would set up a company structure for the purchase to be made through and Bricktrade will act as a nominee and manage the sale. The amount of investment each investor invests, will represent a percentage of ownership within the company.
Do you need to purchase Bricktrade's token to invest in these properties or can you use fiat?
Hi Guv Kang! Great to have you with us. What are the unique features of Bricktrade? What makes it stand out from its competitors?
Thank you for your question Mónica Freitas
Bricktrade has a number of unique features;
- Invest and receive interest in Fiat and Crypto (We will be 1st in the uk)
- Bricktrade lower barriers to entry for property investment - £500/$700 to get started
- Blockchain and tokenisation to provide transparency
- Innovative legal structures to provide maximum investment security to our investors
- Fully regulated and compliant platform
- Partnerships with security token exchanges
- Fractional ownership of assets via tokenisation
- Staking rewards for token holders
- Token holders and investors can win a property in the UK debt free
- Global platform
Guv Kang so on that point about token ownership. What are the benefits of owning your token!
Wow suuuper interesting Guv! So does that mean the majority of properties will be ones not yet built? Since this model is a crowdfunding model right
And it seems like you're launching in the UK but will properties be worldwide?
Thank you for the question SuperSaiyanProgramming
We will be offering both off plan properties and built properties.
The off plan properties can be bought upto a year before they are complete and then we can help rent and manage them through our partner company, Waterfronts.
The built assets will be published on our site, with their various incomes, into which investors can invest and receive a portion of the income, depending on the amount they have invested.
Currently we are operating in London and UK, over the next 18/24mths we hope to expand into Europe, Dubai, far east and Americas.
Thanks for the quick reply! Your expertise in real estate shows your business experience but crypto is a whole new ballgame. Did you have to bring in another team to build that infrastructure for you? Can you tell us a bit about that team?
SuperSaiyanProgramming Your absolutely right, when we started exploring the crypto space we very quickly decided engage a blockchain architect to design our wireframe for our platform. We also have a very experienced blockchain advisor who has many years of experience in the tokenisation space.
Mikael Kayanian - Senior Blockchain Architect
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mkayanian/
Vinay Gupta - Strategy Consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinay-gupta-0072/
Interesting ! So let's say a user invests 500 pounds, how does selling of assets work? If the property value appreciates, can I cash out similar to selling crypto or stocks or do I need to wait for the property to sell?
Thank you Limarc Ambalina Think of each investment as a token or share of a loan or asset, producing an asset backed return. Once we introduce the secondary market, investors will be able (through the bricktrade team) publish their investment in our marketplace for all our investors to see.
Hey Guv Kang, glad to have you here with us! The idea behind Bricktrade is really interesting. What can we expect next from this project?
Also, how is the process to acquire parts of property? Can everyone invest?
Thank you for your kind wordsSara Pinto Here is our roadmap for the near future...
Sara Pinto In order to become a property investor on our platform, you will need to register, upload some KYC and your ready to invest form £500/$700. there will be various investments to choose from, all asset backed; for example construction finance - fixed term, fixed return. Off plan and built asset fractional ownership, There will also be other staking pools you will be able to participate in, all producing a low risk yield, needed in these volatile times.
"Token holders and investors can win a property in the UK debt free" - I like this bit. Could you elaborate on how it works? Guv Kang
Thank you Mónica Freitas for another great question;
- Bricktrade will hold property raffles where token holders can buy tickets to fund a property so a ticket holder can win a property, debt free!!!
- We will then fly them into London, pick them up and bring them to their debt free property, all on camera of course 😁
Cool! Your senior architect has had a lot of projects
Hey really interesting concept for a platform. I'm curious: what issues have arisen for you logistically? Could you see any pushback from government legislation or from the traditional real estate industry?
To add on to that question, and sorry to ask so many, but how do you think such a platform would disrupt the current space? Kickstarter made waves in the startup funding space.
Soooo.. lastly, before i go to bed, don't mean to insult you but I ask this from every new project: What assurances do you have for investors that this isn't another rugpull?
You clearly state the risks for people on your site: https://bricktrade.co.uk/risk-warning
So interested to hear your thoughts on that regard.
NotTheRealElonMusk To answer both of your questions;
We have been in the traditional real estate industry for the past 15yrs in terms of owning a real estate company http://www.waterfronts.co.uk we have many clients from the traditional real estate industry who will be investing in Bricktrade & our products. What we are doing has been happening in the trad-fi space for many years but only open to investors with deep pockets, we are lowering the barrier to entry and bringing access to millions individuals who are looking for safe, asset backed investments and allowing them to invest via fiat and crypto.
This rugpull scenario is new to me, but a valid question, I believe some of these projects have no intention of having a business. Although we are working in an unregulated market, we held off from launching until we had the uk Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) approval, this give Bricktrade credibility and our investors assurance we have obligations and ramifications if we do not run our business appropriately.
You will see from our teams background we have been in business for over 15yrs, running a business is not new to us, we have deep industry knowledge and our concept already has validity as tradfi competitors are doing very well, we are bringing inclusion for crypto holders to be able to invest into property.
When investing in BRKT is it is backed by our team, our experience and our products - Bricktrade property investment tokens are backed by real world assets that generate real world yields. Each token is backed by a real world contract so our users are safe in the knowledge that they cannot be 'rug pulled' - bringing much needed stability to volatile crypto markets.
Guv Kang, sort of a "Welcome to my crib" moment. I LOVE IT 😁
Have you had winners so far? Is there a link people can use to try out their luck and see other winners' reactions/experiences?
Also, what would you say has been the biggest challenge with this project? Guv Kang
SuperSaiyanProgramming Great example - Kickstarter is currently valued at 100m with a 1.3m profit per annum. We believe we will be here within two years as we will not only be be raising funds for construction but also selling the end units. we also have other revenue streams, such as installing energy products in the developments we fund. all these factors will help us generate income.
We will also be the FIRST IN THE UK to accept crypto for property investment. We will also be bringing the time taken to purchase a property (upto 6mths) down to a couple of minutes via tokenisation. this will be a huge disruption in the market.
Mónica Freitas The raffle has not been launched yet. Once we launch our first project, inline with our token launch and staking dapp. We hope to launch the raffle by the end of the year and hope to have one raffle per development project we publish.
I would say our biggest challenge was finding the right tech team, making sure they deliver the spec we had agree, at the cost and timeline they promised.
BTW if you're joining BrickTrade's Gleam giveaway, the secret code you needed to find in this article is EXPLORE. Type that into the giveaway page and you should be good to go!
Interesting, Guv Kang. How is the team's experience suited to the project?
What partnerships have been established?
Mónica Freitas
We have experts in their various skill sets;
The Team so far…
Mandeep Kang - Co Founder & CMO
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mandeep-kang-923753206/
Jasbir Channa - Senior Quantity Surveyor
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasbir-channa-b1157a1b/
Mikael Kayanian - Senior Blockchain Architect
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mkayanian/
Mike Wilkins - COO
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-wilkins-b-sc-cihcm-8484ab20/
Antony S - Commercial Director
https://www.linkedin.com/in/antony-schober-mrics-8608a111/
Vinay Gupta - Strategy Consultant
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinay-gupta-0072/
Roxana Nasoi - Launchpool - Strategic Advisor
https://www.linkedin.com/in/roxananasoi/
Jillian Godsil, MA, BA (hons) - Strategic Advisor & Brand Ambassador
https://ie.linkedin.com/in/jilliangodsil
Mónica Freitas Partnerships so far…
Alphabit & Tech Stars - Investors
Waterfronts - Lettings & Management
Crowd for Angels - FCA regulations
Eversheds & Harper James - Legals
Matterum - Smart Contracts
Certik - Smart Contract Audits
London & Capital - Wealth Management
Archax & http://Gate.io - Exchanges
Cryptoslate - Press Partner
Realm.art - Metaverse
Jillian Godsill, Altcoinsara - Brand Ambassadors
Roxana Nasoi & Richard Simpson from Launchpool - Strategic Advisors
I can't find this info on your website but when is the token launching and on what platforms will it be available on?
August Kim Our token launch will be between July & August, we are in talks with http://gate.io & kucoin for listings - we will be announcing our staking function shortly and will share screen shots with the community.
Please Join our social channels to receive updates.
Thanks so much for your time and for answering everyone's questions so thoroughly Guv Kang. Do you have any final words or upcoming major launches to leave us with before we close the AMA?
Limarc Ambalina Thank you all for your interesting questions 🙏 🙏.
We will have announcements on our social channels very soon;
Please join to keep up-to-date, once we launch later this year, its going go crazy 🚀🚀🚀
Website (https://www.bricktrade.co.uk/)
Telegram Community (https://t.me/bricktrade)
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/bricktrade.co.uk/)
Twitter (https://twitter.com/brick_trade/)
Discord (https://discord.gg/NXBJzH9rqP)
