Axel von Goldbeck – DWF Germany

Q: Axel, tell us a little bit about your background ..

A: I’m a partner at DWF Germany, the German branch of the global legal business DWF Plc and have specialized in real estate business models involving blockchain technology.

Q: How did you get involved in blockchain?

A: I worked as managing director of the German Property Association (Zentraler Immobilien Ausschuss) for a couple of years. There, I caught interest in innovation and property technology which I pursued with a focus on blockchain solution when I left the association and joined DWF.

Q: How do you see blockchain technology impacting real estate?

A: At this stage, the adoption of blockchain applications by the real estate industry is still rare. As opposed to last year, however, there is a clearer vision of what blockchain can be used for. In Germany, it’s basically for financing purposes (asset tokenization) and the management of various ledgers, including the land register, securities register, etc. This is acknowledged by a much broader group of people within real estate. Still, from my point of view, the best is still to come. The development of novel solutions is at high speed and I expected numerous exciting new products within the next twelve months. This will definitely change something in real estate. Whether it will be disruptive, I don’t know. The real estate industry is a giant and hard to disrupt.

Q: What are you focusing on right now?

A: I’m focusing on asset tokenizations, including securities, funds and other indirect real estate investment instruments. This is of special importance for the blockchain industry as the development of token linked to a real asset will help it out of the shady corner in which it got stuck for too long. And it is equally important for the real estate industry which badly requires more digitalization of processes.

Q: What are your thoughts on the future of blockchain?

A: Whether blockchain has a future will very much depend on the solution of numerous issues still unsolved for a greater audience. In our developed world blockchain solutions in order to be successful need to be not only a little better than centralized solutions but a lot better. They need to provide at least the same comfort, increased security and an easy link to the fiat world as long as people feel more comfortable in dealing with real money than cryptocurrencies.

Q: One final thought for our community at Blocksquare?

A: Keep going, the best is yet to come!