Fundament Group gets approval from German regulator BaFin to launch $280M real estate token

Germany-based firm Fundament Group has received the go signal from the Germany Financial Market Supervisory Authority (BaFin) to distribute the country’s first tokenized real estate-backed bond worth €250 million (~$280 million).

“We can confirm that we granted approval for a Fundament Group prospectus. It has indeed been the first time we have approved a prospectus regarding blockchain-based real estate bonds, but not the first time in respect to blockchain technology as such,” a spokesperson from Germany’s financial regulator told CoinDesk.

As per a press release, the bond, which is based on the public ethereum blockchain using the ERC-20 standard, is backed by a portfolio of real estate properties across Germany. The Fundament Real Estate Token securitizes a right or share certificate using a digital token and will be made available globally with no minimum investment restrictions.

CoinDesk reported that investors can buy tokens using bitcoin, ether, U.S. dollars, and euros. Fiat payments are also accepted, but tokens will be delivered on a hardware device. Clients can also liquidate their investment anytime in designated secondary markets.

IDnow will reportedly help verify the identities of prospective buyers to comply with the Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations.

Florian Glatz, Fundament Group Co-Founder, said that the company went through the long process to eliminate any restrictions from regulators.

“Normally these projects are limited either by the minimum investment amount, which would be north of €100,000 or limited heavily in the amount of investors you could have. So it’s the first really like mass-market tokenized real estate for the world,” Glatz told the news outlet.

Just recently, neo-investment bank for digital security issuance Equisafe has also successfully completed its first real estate transaction, facilitating the purchase of a €6.5 million mansion called “AnnA” in the Boulogne-Billancourt neighborhood in Paris, using blockchain. The deal was also tokenized using the ethereum blockchain.