Tokenizing Real Estate: A Natural Use Case For Blockchain Technology Beyond Crypto

Moderator: ALEXANDRA LEVIN KRAMER

Alexandra “Sasha” Levin Kramer is a partner at the global law firm of CKR Law LLP, and the Founding Chair of its Blockchain Technology & Digital Currency practice group of over 60 attorneys world-wide, who provide U.S. and foreign clients including startups, crypto funds, investors, advisors and more with sophisticated and knowledgeable legal advice in underlying legal specialties such as securities, real estate, intellectual property, banking, finance, corporate, investment funds, employment and litigation.

She is also the North American Director for the Foundation for International Blockchain and Real Estate Expertise and serves as a mentor for The Columbia | IBM Blockchain Accelerator and the Alchemist Blockchain Techstars Accelerator.

Alexandra currently serves as the Chief Diversity Officer for the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance and is the creator of Women on the Block (the first all-female speaker Blockchain conference which took place on Mother’s Day, 2018 as part of New York Blockchain Week) as she believes that efforts are required to drive greater diversity across the ecosystem of blockchain, as it evolves and permeates multiple industry sectors around the world. Women and members of underrepresented groups should be provided a voice, a place at the table, and recognition of their revolutionary efforts in this industry to date, which at its core, is also good for business.

She is also the co-founder and CEO of Womin.io, a blockchain-powered marketplace for employers and female freelancers to engage directly on a peer-to-peer basis.

Speaker: Jonathan Haas

Jonathan Haas is currently the VP of Engineering, Propy Inc., a real estate listing platform, a transaction platform, and a decentralized registry, that when using in combination, serves to eliminate fraud and facilitate considerably faster real estate transactions.

He previously was the co-founder and CEO of SoHo Token Labs, Inc. Haas ran security audits at Quantstamp (YC W18), and led offensive security efforts at Snap Inc. As an independent contributor, Haas designed and implemented multiple highly acclaimed static analysis tools at various Fortune 10 companies, including Apple and Amazon. He presents at conferences around the world, and leads roundtable discussions for security professionals on risk management, corporate security and insider threat.

Speaker: Rebecca Leshinsky

Dr. Rebecca Leshinsky, Barrister-at-Law, has practiced in Australia as a property and land use planning lawyer for over 20 years. Rebecca holds a tenured position in the School of Property, Construction and Project Management at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University. She works extensively with her school to ensure graduates are work ready to deal with emerging and disruptive technologies in the real estate sector, and her academic research is centered in global comparative experiences for how Blockchain technologies are integrating land registration and land administration processes.

Speaker: Perrin Quarshie

Perrin is the Founder & CEO of RealBlocks, an online platform that leverages the blockchain infrastructure to democratize access to REITs and Alternative Investments by 1) lowering the required dollar amount 2) globalizing access and 3) by providing a mechanism for secondary trading. Perrin began his career as a civil engineer at NAC International, where he focused on domestic and international real estate development projects within the energy sector. After 6 years at NAC, Perrin left to begin grad school at MIT, during which time he researched the implications of Blockchain Technology for real estate capital formation. While at MIT, Perrin worked at Barclays as an associate in Real Estate Investment Banking, where he conducted M&A and Capital Markets Transactions for various REIT sponsors such as Kimco, Brookfield and Ventas.

Speaker: John Dean Markunas

John Dean Markunas is a real estate industry blockchain advisor and business development consultant. He is the Principal Consultant with Power of Chain Consultancy, a blockchain advisory firm. His current work focuses on four distinct sectors; property title insurance, the timeshare industry, commercial real estate fractionalization investment and crowdfunding with a special focus on land registry systems, title recordation and land governance.

Mr. Markunas has over 30 years of commercial real estate experience including real estate development, brokerage, appraising, and title insurance focusing on the U.S. and Latin America markets. Outside of the U.S. he has lived and worked in Mexico and Brazil.

John is an enthusiastic advocate and supporter of blockchain technologies. He is a member of FIBREE (Foundation for International Blockchain Real Estate Expertise) and the founder and co-chair of FIBREE's New York City Chapter.

John is also an active member of the Government Blockchain Association (GBA) and is the Leader of GBA's Land Titling Working Group. The Land Title Working group explores blockchain technologies to address land titling and land registry processes around the world. The Group members identify and study real estate use-cases, pilot programs and other solutions deployed in a variety of countries with the goal of reaching out to government institutions on municipal, state and federal levels to 1) educate, 2) recommend and 3) consult and assist with the implementation of blockchain solutions in their respective jurisdictions.