I started my career during the mainframe era of the early 80s and have worked with many of the innovations that were introduced as businesses embraced the internet age. The consumer demand for speed and simplicity were the drivers behind the move from mainframes to internet-based portals.

Internet consumers look for choices when shopping and a wide variety of websites are available today. Companies support the websites using databases that are where maintained as one of the costs of doing business.

Innovation in business processing will continue even though the consumer expectation for speed and simplicity have been satisfied. Ownership of information could be the next move for consumers and this includes control of digital information. Control is achieved by enforcing the terms of use for the information which can also include compensation. Blockchain technology can meet the business demands of this kind of control at an acceptable price.

I first studied blockchain technology several years ago and wrote a white paper on the topic in 2018. In that paper, I described the different real estate blockchain applications that would be tested in the market over the next seven years. Here is a link to the entire White Paper.

I thought that the number of new blockchain solutions would slow down after 2020 as business leaders evaluated their applicability. The variety of blockchain applications that were presented led to the “solution in search of a problem” narrative and I thought a two-year period of “shakeout” would occur. I did not see the COVID-19 pandemic coming and the impact on startups was significant.

We now entering 2023 and interoperability between blockchains has arrived. Cryptocurrency can be moved between blockchains and government oversight is being discussed.

The next few posts will discuss data ownership, blockchain and how it affects real estate businesses. It could take years for companies to adopt, but we will explore a few early steps in that direction.

Update 11/11/2022: The FTX bankruptcy is the kind of event that drives oversight. It will take time to define what oversight will look like but I still think we will know a lot more by 2025.