CitaDAO AMA with BTA Ventures
Primer: CitaDAO is a DeFi platform on a mission to build sustainable yield farms powered by real estate globally. Join Joel Lin, contributor at CitaDAO, as he shares about the project and answers thoughtful questions from the Vietnamese community at BTA.
Thoughts On The Market
Been in crypto since 2017
Decrease in prices are normal and healthy for the market
I mean, in crypto we don’t sleep.
- Joel Lin
Background
Is from the institutional real estate space
Was at CBRE, Capitaland, and UBS investment bank previously
In 2017, there were many real estate tokenization projects approaching the landlords
However, the projects were not able to articulate how the real estate tokens could be redeemed for the title deed/red book (in Vietnam)
Got together with a group of lawyers and managed to reach a breakthrough where real estate tokens could be redeemed for the underlying real estate
In October 2020, they started the CitaDAO project
CitaDAO
A DeFi real estate ecosystem
The idea is to unlock accessibility, liquidity, and composability for real estate on-chain with DeFi
Believes that there will be two prices for real estate in the future:
Price of on-chain real estate
Price of off-chain real estate
Thinks that on-chain real estate prices will be more valuable than its off-chain price because of the number of use cases that could be created on-chain
For example, the iPhone App Store increases the value of an iPhone because of the increase in the number of use cases created by the apps on the App Store
Real estate is like the iPhone, and CitaDAO is like the App Store which enables Real Estate in the real world to leverage the use cases generated by other DeFi projects to increase the value of Real Estate on-chain
“We are the App Store for Real Estate. And we will be increasing the use cases for real estate on-chain. We believe that the value of real estate tokens on-chain will increasingly be driven by the use cases for the real estate tokens itself and the underlying real estate will only contribute a fraction of the actual value of real estate. And because of that, we believe real estate today is a very traditional asset class that's ripe for disruption.”
- Joel Lin
Questions From The Community
In what order is the following more important to CitaDAO? Increasing token price, empowering platform development, building the community, and expanding partnership globally?
Believes that building community trust is the most important, followed by expanding partnership, empowering platform development, and lastly increasing token price
The objective is to create a sustainable token price and value
To achieve that, they need to take care of their community, build the right partnerships and their platform
How will CitaDAO generate profit? What is their revenue model?
The CitaDAO treasury will receive 2% of all real estate tokens from a successful IRO
The more real estate is tokenized, the value of the CitaDAO treasury would go up
Projects and partnerships with CitaDAO would drive demand for the real estate tokens and their value would increase
The CitaDAO token is a governance token and is used to determine how the platform is used. The governance rights can be used to increase demand for the platform in future by the DAO. (i.e. Landlords need to have ~1 million CitaDAO tokens before they can list their property on the platform, driving demand for the tokens)
Can you share about your team members and their experiences in the market?
Team consists of OGs in the crypto space, such as founders of other DeFi projects
Have high networth family offices who have agreed to convert their property into real estate tokens to support CitaDAO
Have lawyers from top law firms as well as tech leaders
What are the killer features and competitive advantage of CitaDAO over its competitors?
They are the first DeFi real estate project in the market and will be able to leverage the power of DeFi to increase liquidity and accessibility for a traditionally bulky and illiquid asset class.
CitaDAO leverages DeFi to enable the RET holders to own the property in 5 years or less. Other real estate projects use CeFi platforms and holders would only be able to own the property after 30-40 years
Another advantage is that there’s 24/7 liquidity for CitaDAO’s real estate tokens
They are building an ecosystem and increasing the use cases for their real estate tokens, unlike real estate CeFi platforms that are not integrated with the DeFi ecosystem and have to build up their own use cases privately.
Their real estate tokens and CitaDAO tokens are not security tokens. Hence, they can be listed on exchanges globally to drive up liquidity
CitaDAO’s real estate tokens can be used to redeem the underlying real estate title deeds. Other real estate tokenization projects do not allow for such redemptions
Are the smart contracts audited?
Their project has been audited by ABDK
Has published their audit report for the community to inspect
What is their biggest challenge?
To find out the right legal structure
They had to study legal structures from all over the world before finding one that works under English law/Commonwealth law
What are the plans and strategies for CitaDAO?
In Q1, their plan is to introduce liquidity for the CitaDAO token
The team will be launching the first IRO — buying a building that is leased to a bank in the UK
Their next step is to bring a hacker house in London on-chain. It will be used as a co-working space and a NFT gallery
In Q2 2022, they will be launching more than $200 million USD worth of real estate on-chain
In Q3 2022, they will go public and allow landlords to list their properties on the platform. Planning to grow their platform to US $4 billion TVL by 2023
Can you give us an overview of CitaDAO’s tokenomics?
CitaDAO tokens would never be sold
The only way is to earn it by buying the real estate tokens and LPing the real estate tokens to earn the CitaDAO tokens
CitaDAO tokens allocated to developers and builders are locked between 18 - 48 months
Another way to get CitaDAO tokens is to join their Discord server, complete the quests, and receive CitaDAO tokens from being part of their community.
How do they take into account community feedback?
They take feedback from the community
Active contributors from the community are brought into the team
Team members are paid with CitaDAO tokens
“We always ask our community to question and challenge us publicly on Discord. So that is transparent and we can keep improving the project.”
- Joel Lin
Have a weekly project introduction call every Tuesday to share about their project to anyone who wants to learn more
They have a Vietnamese community who will help to address questions
What are their community expansion plans?
Plan to expand by integrating with other DeFi projects
Will be hosting more AMA sessions with DeFi projects and help them to increase their TVL so that they can become long-term CitaDAO token holders
Will be onboarding more community members to help with non-native English speakers
How does the DAO manage unreasonable voting that deviates from the project?
They will have a proper governance structure
Others DAOs such as Bankless DAO, Olympus DAO, Temple DAO, and Index Coop have a very sophisticated DAO governance structure such that only the right kind of proposals are put up for voting
Is he concerned that the falling market will affect the project? What are their plans for such a situation?
He’s not concerned about a falling market
CitaDAO is backed by real estate in the real world
All over the world, real estate prices are increasing. When other token prices are falling, everybody would want to get exposure to real estate, which would be valuable in a bear market
Is CitaDAO open to people with small funds?
They are open to everyone. There is no minimum amount.
What are their plans to avoid inflation?
CitaDAO tokens and real estate tokens are meant to hedge against inflation of the US dollar
As real estate prices increase with inflation in the real world, so will the on-chain real estate token price
The rent that they collect from the property will be used to buy and burn the real estate token, making it deflationary
Why did they choose the Ethereum network?
For several reasons:
Ethereum has the most liquidity
Ethereum has the most number of DeFi projects that they can integrate with
Real estate is a very large asset class. Gas fees, as a percentage of the real estate value, is considered to be affordable
Joining Their Discord
Will be rewarding the BTA community with an airdrop of CitaDAO tokens
Join their Discord, let the team know that you are from BTA, and then join their Vietnamese community for the airdrop
Their TGE will be happening very soon
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