The failures

High mountain guides keep a precise memory of accidents. They know which couloir swept away which party, which cornice gave way under which step, which error of judgement turned a fine climb into a tragedy. This memory protects those who come after. The failures that follow are told in that spirit, with respect for those who suffered them.

One constant runs through almost all these stories. The blockchain worked. The tokens were issued, transferred and recorded exactly as planned. What gave way lay elsewhere, in the management of the assets, the governance of the structures, the honesty of the borrowers, the consistency between promised and real liquidity, or the very design of the projects.

RealT, or governance off the chain

No failure is more instructive for tokenised real estate than RealT’s. Chapter 7 recounted its birth. In 2019 two brothers, Remy and Jean-Marc Jacobson, began tokenising single-family homes in Detroit. Each property was housed in a separate US company, whose shares were sold as tokens from a few tens of dollars to investors around the world. Rents were paid out every week in stablecoins, directly into holders’ wallets. A marketplace allowed the tokens to be traded.