Bitrent.io, Blockchain platform for real-estate investment Opens MENA regional Office in Dubai

UNLOCK interviewed Dmitriy Krasnogor, GCC Partner, Bitrent. According to Dmitriy, “Bitrent Enterprise Ethereum platform enables every individual on earth to invest and own any commercial and residential property item because they need not invest huge sums. So this makes buying hotels, business and shopping centers affordable to everyone.” He adds, “This is also good for developers, especially small medium sized, who are short on cashflow.” For example in UAE a developer has to have paid up 50% of cost of project before moving forward with construction, this could be one way of raising the amount quickly, efficiently and legally.”  

The idea for Bitrent came from the founders of Ukraine based construction company MEGALINE. The platform not only allows investments in construction projects, but these investments are protected by records on a decentralized registry, and information on real-estate objects are stored on the Blockchain while real-estate transactions are carried out via smart contracts.

The platform can also be used for tracking construction process using Building information modeling, and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification for monitoring and control). Both BIM and RFID enables participants to share vital real-estate information in real-time while ensuring quality control.

Today as Dmitry explains, “We are in Dubai and are currently in the phases of registering our company through a representative office Al Mubadarah in DMCC. We will also be signing a Letter of Intent with Dubai Land Department, as supporters of this project. We will have Dubai as our regional headquarters for the entire MENA region while London will remain our global headquarter.”

A beta version of Bitrent platform has already been launched with Unity Towers. The opening of sale of UNT tokens will take place between March 4^th and May 5^th 2018. As Dmitry explains, “Bitrent as a Blockchain application has issued utility tokens through private ICOs selling 200,000,000 tokens so far. We intend to sell 699 million tokens in other private ICOs and retain 100,000,000 for the company. These RNT tokens will be used for services on Bitrent, commission fees. As for the construction projects they will issue their own security tokens that can be used to redeem dividends in commercial projects such as department stores, hotels, etc. Once the project is complete owners can either cash in for shares or remain anonymous investors via their tokens.”

Today Bitrent is focusing on commercial developments including shopping centers, business centers, hotels, as the residential apartment purchases need further regulatory development as you actually own an asset an apartment that needs to be registered and not a share or security token. As Dmitriy explained,” legislative wise it is easier to invest in commercial developments where investors have shares in the company rather than own actual real-estate. In the future we hope to extend this to ownership once regulatory and legislative issues are resolved.” Bitrent are keen that they carry out a thorough Know-Your-Customer Process in each country they will set up offices especially when it comes to developers and their reputation. As Dmitriy states, “We are working closely with lawyers and governmental bodies to ensure that we do thorough KYC as well as follow the legislative guidelines of each country.”

Bitrent hopes to sign up potential developers in its event set for March 6^th in Dubai.