Propy is a startup that provides a marketplace that essentially merges traditional real estate assets with an NFT. It has recently sold its first property in the US.
The 2,164-square-foot house in Gulfport, Florida, fetched $653,000 (210 ETH) at auction, with the winning bidder being awarded a non-fungible token (NFT) as proof of the home’s ownership.
The NFT itself is linked to an LLC that owns the physical asset instead of being linked directly to the title deeds of the house. This is still very experimental but is definitely exciting for the NFT space which accounts for $16 Billion (roughly 1%) of the $2 Trillion market cap of cryptocurrencies.
Propy says the NFT can be used as collateral for crypto borrowers and investors.
Why does this Matter?
Well, the home buying process is always very difficult and it entails a lot of paperwork, buying a property through an NFT simplifies the entire home buying process into just a few clicks.
What's more important is the ability to use the property as collateral and this is no longer solely in the hands of your bank. With an NFT contract proving the value of your property through its last sale, you can use the contract as collateral to borrow money directly from someone else instead of having to go only to your bank. Because this lending process is no longer exclusively available to banks it makes the 2008 crisis that much harder to happen again or at least not at the original scale we saw it in 2008.