CitaDAO: Real Estate Tokenization and Ownership on Ethereum

Citadao.io
4 min readSep 18, 2021

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CitaDAO is a DeFi blockchain project that seeks to bring real estate assets on-chain at scale through the use of NFT tokenization.

Real estate is one of the most ancient and proven methods to build and preserve wealth. From buying up your own houses and apartments to rent out, to buying shares in condo projects, to investing in REITs (Real Estate Investment Trust), there is no shortage of ways to get into the real estate game. To this end, CitaDAO aims to be another tool — if not the next level — in the arsenal.

Why tokenize real estate?

Through tokenization of real estate, CitaDAO makes this asset class available for the crypto community as a way to build and preserve wealth while keeping their assets on-chain to benefit from increased accessibility, liquidity, and composability. However, before we can leverage the blockchain for real estate tokens, we need to ensure the Real Estate Tokens are built on a solid foundation. Let’s walk through the process of moving a real estate asset on-chain through CitaDAO.

The Process of Tokenizing Real Estate

When a building is listed on the CitaDAO platform, the CitaDAO community will be able to commit their interest to own a fraction of it. Once sufficient commitment is secured, the building will be purchased by a Special Purpose Vehicle (“SPV”), and everyone who commits to owning a fraction of it will receive a Real Estate Token (“RETs”) that represents the right to buy out all other RET holders and enforce their claims against the building.

Given this focus on systemic legality from CitaDAO, the CitaDAO community has legitimate claims against the building, capturing both the legal and economic benefits of the real estate. On the other hand, much like Kickstarter, every listing on CitaDAO has a time limit. Should the interest be insufficient, the commitments will be returned to the community in full. Participants can feel secure in the fact that the value committed will be fully returned to them, either in Real Estate Tokens or per their original commitment in the event of an unsuccessful listing.

The legal foundation is built in steps 1 and 2 to ensure the structural integrity of all Primitives that will be built upon the RET. More on RET Primitives in a separate article

Building on a strong foundation

Once we have established a strong foundation that RETs represent Real Estate and can be used to redeem a full title and deed, we believe that Real Estate can have significantly higher utility as an on-chain asset.

The key benefits of being on-chain is that RETs have greater accessibility, liquidity, and composability than real estate as an off-chain asset — the essence of DeFi.

Being an ERC20 project operating on DeFi principles and code, with NFTs based on the familiar ERC721 format, CitaDAO-fractionalised real estate can be transacted and collateralised by anyone. It is also easily stored in any wallet or smart contract that interfaces with the Ethereum network. With 94% of blockchain projects currently being built on Ethereum, all of which can cross-operate with CitaDAO, anyone on Earth with access to the Ethereum mainnet can use the CitaDAO platform and commit any amount that represents their interest in the property. For example, a $100,000 real estate will be split into 100,000 ERC20 Real Estate Tokens, and anyone can tap into the real estate value on the CitaDAO platform. One can participate in a shophouse in Singapore or a duplex in Toronto — across all borders, all creeds, all races. This is just one example of how RETs as an on-chain asset can have greater utility than off-chain.

Finally, being an Ethereum-based DeFi project that grows and operates along with its community, CitaDAO can grow as explosively, as autonomously and as creatively as any DeFi ecosystem out there — not unlike Yearn Finance, Cream Finance or Curve Finance, but with the added benefit that now there is a DeFi ecosystem that immediately connects and unlocks the vast potential of the 9 trillion US dollars worth of real estate throughout the 54 Commonwealth nations.

While there have been attempts to break into the real estate tokenization space, CitaDAO is the first to create a strong groundwork to support an ecosystem of RET powered DeFi. Join us on this journey to tokenize and bring real-world assets to the Metaverse.

About CitaDAO
CitaDAO.io is a Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platform for Real Estate to be tokenized on-chain, built on the Ethereum ecosystem. CitaDAO aims to solve the lack of liquidity, access limitation, and lack of composability in existing real estate ecosystem by creating interoperability with other DeFi applications/primitives that operate on the Ethereum protocol. Real estate token allows the community to diversify their portfolio on-chain to generate stable yield through real-world assets that have constant liquidity through AMM. Interested to build the future with us?

Follow us on Twitter: @citadao_io
Join our community on Discord: bit.ly/citadao
Or check out our website: citadao.io

Disclaimer: The information contained in this communication is based on sources considered to be reliable, but not guaranteed, to be accurate or complete. This communication should not be relied upon or the basis for making any investment decision or be construed as a recommendation to engage in any transaction or be construed as a recommendation of any investment strategy

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Citadao.io
Citadao.io

Written by Citadao.io

Reinventing the real estate investment ecosystem through DeFi