A team at Collins Barrow in Toronto has been working with Meiyingju Group, a Hong Kong firm, to develop a real estate service that could change the game on global real estate investment.

The idea is described as a real estate token, a digital asset with an underlying real estate asset connected to it, according to a press release. A trial project involves connecting a real estate token to a residential development in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area valued at $655 million. According to the press release, the Hong Kong partner joined with Collins Barrow to present a “hybrid digital asset fund” to investors.

“It provides a little bit more security and stability to the pricing of cryptocurrency,” Ben Gibbons told Toronto Business Daily.

Describing Meiyingju's efforts to create its own assets in blockchain, Gibbons cited bitcoin and Ethereum as technologies with which the public may be more familiar.

The real estate token is tied to the actual Dallas-Fort Worth development in a meaningful way, he said. 

“They can trade these tokens for a house,” Gibbons said.

Other pending projects include talks with a luxury resort in the Maldives that may soon allow for token holders to pay for lodging with their digital assets.

Gibbons said in the future, the partnering companies intend to expand what they call an “ecosystem” of bitcoin, for example, to allow those holding cryptocurrency to purchase retail goods. Reports on the project show that the initial building of this ecosystem is already underway, with investors talking about ways to support ongoing rollouts. 

In time, everything we buy, from sneakers to mattresses to ovens, may be bought with bitcoin or other new cryptocurrencies. Digital payment technologies are already changing the ways that we buy and the ways that we think about commerce in profound ways. 

What Meiyingju Group and Collins Barrow have set in motion may be part of the next step.