If you’re a fan of risky ventures, this one should float your boat.
El Segundo-based Aperture Real Estate Ventures launched its cryptocurrency ICO — initial coin offering — with the goal of raising $50 million to invest in a house-flipping business.
The currency, Property Coin, which launched Tuesday, will be invested by “seasoned experts” with the help of a suite of analytical tools Aperture developed, the company has said. The idea is that investors leave the nitty-gritty details of house-flipping — already a high-risk proposition — and investment to Aperture and focus instead on the value of its coin.
Co-CEO Andrew Jewett has sought to downplay the potential risk involved, noting as much in an interview with The Real Deal in February, when the company announced it intended to hold an ICO that month.
Jewett said Property Coin is not akin to wildly speculative cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin because investors can see what backs Property Coin’s value, namely the real estate asset. Given that fact, the currency is not subject “to the wild fluctuations in the belief of the value of that asset,” he has said.
Property Coin was launched at $50 per coin with a minimum investment of $1,000 in the U.S., and $100 for investors from outside the country. The coin is based on Ethereum, a blockchain development platform that lets third-party developers like Aperture build new applications that utilize the public ledger.
Hundreds of applications have been built on the system, including a digital cat breeding and trading that became so popular in December that it clogged up transactions on the network and a “prediction market” application for derivatives trading.