From countries to health records The authorities are embracing blockchain

Blockchain real estate technology firm Propy is now recording real estate sales and recording title and escrow documents on NFTs and in addition to standard blockchain transactions.

With its recently launched Title & Escrow Service, the firm – which sold the first tokenized property, an apartment in Ukraine (several years ago, of course) – has added the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) best known for holding Bored Ape avatars and NBA slam dunk clips, for your toolbox.

So what’s two-fold: First, the tokenization of property deeds and other documents that have been talked about for years as one of the lowest hanging fruits in blockchain document preservation is finally starting to be used.

But secondly, NFTs offer one advantage over simple tokenization of titles and the like. While a transaction where the documents are uploaded to a blockchain is just as permanent and visible, putting them on NFTs – which display different types of media – is a more user-friendly experience.

Take the example of the first known deed transfer, the sale of a condominium in South Burlington, Vermont, recorded on the Ethereum blockchain more than three and a half years ago, in February 2018 — a year after a law that made such documents enforceable.

This was also handled by Propy, whose CEO, Natalia Karayaneva, told TechCrunch earlier this year that it had “all the necessary smart contracts and a compliant legal framework that allows tokenization of real estate in the United States.”

Simplicity is important

As high-tech crypto-powered provenance technology goes, it was a bit of a letdown: It’s just a scan of a paper-based and hand-signed document that has, at the very end, a notice that it’s been admitted to a smart contract, followed by a long series of letters and numbers and a QR code that allows anyone to look up the block in question via a public Ethereum blockchain explorer website.

But more than that following that code or alphanumeric code to a public Ethereum blockchain explorer site takes you to a fairly technical site that shows a transaction record quite clearly but requires some knowledge to dredge up the title transfer document itself.

Although it is easy to say that it does not matter for a document that will mostly be of interest to a buyer and seller, lawyers and perhaps a tax collector. And the technology’s real purpose is to make sure the documents — which still have to be filed on paper, too — are searchable, won’t be lost in a statehouse fire or require a lawyer to spend many billable hours searching through the largely paper files that still record land sales across the country and the world. Beyond that, it is securely and immutably registered on Ethereum, meaning it is registered on all of the more than 2,000 Ethereum nodes spread across the globe.

Nevertheless, when it comes to using technology, the reality is APIs and simplicity that matter.

That said, there’s a reason real estate has been a target for blockchain developers interested in bringing the technology into industry: Not only is the chain of ownership almost everywhere a mess of paperwork that goes back decades and even a century or more back – there’s a reason bank loans require a title search that can cost thousands of dollars – the law is incredibly complex.

Pain points

In 2013, a mentally ill man walked into the San Diego County Recorder’s Office and, with a properly filled out form, transferred control of the Padres baseball team’s stadium, Petco Park, to himself.

Did he own it? Of course not. But two years later, the team was still in court trying to fix the mess, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Imagine it wasn’t a half-billion-dollar stadium, but a small house belonging to someone with no lawyers on staff, and you see why some local and state governments are turning to blockchain-based land and property registries.

Real estate is one of 65 industries CB Insights predicted in March could be transformed by blockchain technology.

“Pain points for buying and selling real estate include lack of transparency during and after transactions, large amounts of paperwork, possible fraud and errors in public records,” it said. “Blockchain offers a way to reduce the need for paper-based record-keeping and speed up transactions – helping stakeholders improve efficiency and reduce transaction costs on all sides of the transaction.”

That is why it has received a lot of attention in developing countries with poor country records such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, pushed by organizations such as the UN and the World Bank.

Healthy growth

Another, more recent use of blockchain technology for record keeping is New York State’s Excelsior Pass, a vaccine pass app built by IBM Blockchain on the Digital Health Pass app that allowed access to public venues during the COVID lockdowns. The Food and Drug Administration has

Singapore, which has embraced blockchain technology, also created a digital health passport, which “stores issued medical certificates such as COVID-19 testing and vaccination status, which are independently verifiable,” PwC wrote in an August article on how governments around the world. the world is experimenting with blockchain records.

By and large, healthcare is one of the areas receiving the most attention from blockchain proponents, as its ability to store information immutably but only provide selective access to the actual records makes them ideal for information that may be needed very quickly and accurate, but also contains highly personal data.

Canada has used blockchain and the digital ledger technology it is built on in a number of digital ID and registration pilot projects, including its biometrically supported Known Traveler Digital Identity System and a digital credential management system that PwC said issued “floating ‘projects'”. employees … a digital ID that gives them a permanent, self-owned and secure record of their skills and experience. The credentials are recognized and accepted on the government’s labor market.”

There are many other areas where blockchain is being tested, from defense contracts to police records to voting registers and machines.

“Regardless of country, there is a government trying a blockchain pilot,” PwC wrote. “Decentralized ledger technology is used in all areas of government, from defense to health.”

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