Mr. Musk is making quite the splash this week. Traditional news sources provided a plethora of views - and very little actual news - about the proposed ‘purchase’ of Twitter. A quick search for the topic this morning returned these results:

Breakingviews: Elon probably won’t by Twitter - Reuters (Breakingviews - cute)

Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase leads to steep drop in Tesla stock - The Washington Post

Why Elon Musk Bought Twitter - The New Yorker

All mainstream eyes (and commentary) are on Musk and Twitter. We noticed something different - and way more important in terms of our line of work:

Tesla Taps MakerDAO-Powered Lender for $7.8M Real Estate Deal - The Defiant

Making sense of something that doesn’t make sense has become our ‘thing’ at Orion Growth. Simple truths like office space being oversubscribed, commercial leases favoring landlords, and traditional finance setting the rules of engagement were never lost on us. Don’t hate the player, hate the game…or when translated….

The frustrations with a system or activity should be blamed on its weaknesses rather than on the individuals who operate within it.

The traditional CRE Development Process - soup to nuts - needs an overhaul. We could spend hours talking nuances here - so let’s take the 30,000ft view. Finance, Acquisition, Development, Design/Engineering/Construction, Marketing, Leasing even operating the asset…all of it deserves a fresh look.

Resplendent thinking?

Sure. But doable - at least in part - with web3 technology and modern modeling.

Back to Tesla and their choice to close a real estate deal with 6s Capital powered by MakerDAO via RWA. Tesla probably doesn’t need $7.8M to open a body shop. If they did - and they had the incentive to take advantage of traditional finance models - we’re pretty sure thier capital request would be a simple underwriting exercise and the project would get funded. So why 6s Capital?

MakerDAO’s defi model offers (in part) two unique selling points - smart contract interaction and integrated asset financing protocol - which allows the asset originators to borrow DAI (stable coin) against non-crypto collateral including real estate, mortgages and invoices.

Of interest to Orion Growth are the transitions. In the current system, the finance arm is siloed from the development arm. The development arm, through E/A/C, is siloed from the marketing and leasing team. The property management team and their interface with occupiers is siloed from the Landlord. There are several reasons for this - some intentional - but common to each are disparate technology systems. None of these industries are particularly tech-savvy and each just wants to do its ‘part’ of the process. The A/E/C industry (design) is particularly bespoke - sometimes to a fault.

A better understanding in web3 technology is required beyond here. It’s technical and requires caffeine. Committees, sponsors, proposal and consensus mechanisms, vaults, wallets, hashing, tokens. There are experts on each - and pros and cons of each decision. Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t. Maybe the world will adopt a global stable-coin….maybe economic concepts like scarcity and store of value will become common terms. Likely not. One thing is certain - the world’s largest EV maker, owned by the wealthiest man in the world, with a very public position in cryptocurrency has closed a convertible defi loan for commercial development, and we think it’s cool.

It’s all connected.

#AWGMI

#WAGMI

Photo by Josh Riemer on Unsplash