[chrisco255]

It's rare that buyers of houses and property are that thorough. On the contrary, my friend recently bought a plot of land for which the sellers did not own the title. The title company, who's only job is to verify this, completely missed it. The fake sellers made out with tens of thousands of dollars and the real owners, who are from Germany, are still haggling with my friend and trying to get her or the title company to pay for their lawyer fees, and she still doesn't have title to the land!

At least with crypto, the chain of ownership is transparent and can't be faked. So validation is cheap and easy to do.

[lostcolony]

>> At least with crypto, the chain of ownership is transparent and can't be faked. So validation is cheap and easy to do.

In theory. The devil is in the details; does everyone know how to validate the chain of ownership, even the most non-technical of users who must rely on the system? If not, you either will never be mainstream, or you're reliant on a trusted agent to validate on your behalf (sorta like a title company!).

And if you screw something up with crypto, there is no way to address it. The complaint of "dealing with lawyers and trying to get someone to pay for it" is a feature, not a bug. Worst case, it's no different than the crypto outcome; best case, you have recourse.

[hnfong]

Where is the land mentioned? Is there no land registry there? In many jurisdictions, titles to land are registered through a government operated registry where would-be buyers could look up information on the situation of the land rights.

AFAIK you don't need to be a title company to do this, any buyer could do it themselves.

And what if you don't know enough about land law to make sense of everything? That's when you need companies to do it for you.

Is checking the chain of ownership of cryptocurrencies easier than land? It depends whether you're talking to a real estate lawyer or a NFT seller.

I'm neither, and I don't see the intrinsic difference.