How RealtyBits powers alternative asset marketplaces on top of the Stellar network

RealtyBits

RealtyBits Inc. is a marketplace infrastructure provider for private asset investing. It connects verified sponsors & investors to directly transact with each other in a secure and compliant way. Sponsors use custom dashboards to manage their cap-tables in real-time and investors through the life of the asset, while investors can browse listed offerings and invest in them freely on the RealtyBits platform.

Traditionally, to invest in a private asset, an investor first needs to seek out the sponsoring party, usually a private equity manager, for said asset. This evolves into an investment process between multiple parties that is arduous, slow, and expensive. In addition, the current tools and technology used to facilitate this process are often manual and don’t sync well across different systems. 

To promote greater efficiency in investor-sponsor relationships and streamline the investment process, RealtyBits built a powerful platform that offers its users fast transactions, a simplified onboarding and verification process, and easy-to-use management tools. After identifying the pain points affecting investors and sponsors, RealtyBits landed on Stellar as the solution to power their hybrid on-chain and off-chain system.

Simple User Experience

• Users don’t even need to know that the Stellar blockchain is what powers the RealtyBits platform. By taking advantage of Horizon, the API for interacting with the Stellar network, RealtyBits lets sponsors and investors take full advantage of Stellar’s payment features while navigating via a user-friendly interface at the same time. 

Ease of Issuing an Asset

• When a sponsor onboards an offering using RealtyBits, the protocol automatically registers the offering on the Stellar network on their behalf. Asset issuance on the Stellar network does not rely on smart contracts. Since it’s a native feature, issuing assets is simple on Stellar – the equivalent of a few lines of code.

Speed and Zero Fees

• Traditional investing in private assets takes a long time and involves exhaustive back-and-forth between the investor, sponsor, and other related parties – usually through email and wire transfers.
• When sponsors or investors transact with each other, RealtyBits utilizes the Stellar protocol to confirm and record those transactions instantaneously. The transaction fees on Stellar are so minimal – less than a fraction of a cent – that investors don’t have to pay anything to invest. The only cost is the fee RealtyBits charges sponsors to use its platform, which is more than 90% lower than any other comparable solution out there.

An Immutable Ledger

• When a sponsor creates a private offering using RealtyBits infrastructure, that asset is registered on Stellar replicating exact terms of the offering.
• Sponsors and investors can then track confirmation and ownership rights of those units through transaction records that are updated by Stellar’s immutable distributed ledger.
• Since all transactions on Stellar’s ledger are verified by multiple validators and cannot be changed, sponsors and investors can rest assured that the transaction records are accurate and secure.

Account Creation

• When sponsors and investors create an account on RealtyBits, RealtyBits creates unique accounts linked to wallets powered by Stellar. In combination with RealtyBits’ own features, sponsors and investors can leverage Stellar’s unique features for their own use cases.

• RealtyBits enables sponsors to either create a private offering and list an offering on their own branded marketplace or the wider RealtyBits network thanks to Stellar. The Stellar protocol also enables sponsors to facilitate their investor transactions and store capital in their wallets.

• When investors want to participate in an offering, they must go through a verification process and sign proper documentation using pre-built compliance and verification tools. Once those steps are complete, investors can safely make capital contributions using US Dollars and other acceptable currencies into their Stellar-powered wallets in order to satisfy their capital commitment requirements.