## Real Estate is a Trillion-Dollar Problem
Real estate is the largest asset class in the world—worth $380 trillion—yet it remains stuck in the past. Transactions take months, liquidity is locked, and ownership is fragmented across outdated systems.

This inefficiency doesn’t just frustrate homeowners and investors—it holds the entire market back. Unlike stocks or digital assets, real estate lacks a shared infrastructure that enables liquidity, programmability, and seamless transactions. Instead, it operates on siloed, jurisdiction-specific systems, relying on brokers, banks, and legal intermediaries.

The result? Billions in unnecessary fees, artificial scarcity, and trapped capital. The market isn’t just inefficient—it’s actively limiting its own growth.
## Why Has No One Fixed It?
The problem isn’t new, and neither are the attempts to solve it.

* Web2 platforms like Zillow and Airbnb digitized listings but left ownership, transactions, and liquidity unchanged.
* Web3 tokenization projects failed because they made three critical mistakes:
		* Each project tokenized assets under its own standard, creating fragmentation instead of interoperability.
		* They competed for customers rather than solving the core infrastructure problem—making bootstrapping demand nearly impossible.
		* They didn’t communicate with each other, preventing network effects from emerging as more assets moved on-chain.

Real estate has never had a shared operating system. Every solution has focused on individual platforms and marketplaces targeting end users rather than building the foundational infrastructure the industry needs.
![](https://lightshift-website.s3.amazonaws.com/1741699670621_The%20current%20real%20estate%20market.png)
## The Solution: A Real Estate Operating System 
For real estate to function like a modern asset class, it doesn’t need another marketplace or tokenization project. It needs a fundamental shift in infrastructure.

Arda is the universal operating system for real estate. A digital-first foundation that makes real estate programmable, liquid, and seamlessly tradable.

Instead of scattered platforms, Arda provides:

* A public single technical layer – A secure, scalable blockchain that digitizes ownership, transactions, and embedded finance.
* A unified legal framework – Assets follow jurisdictional rules for ownership, transferability, taxation, and compliance.

This eliminates fragmentation and enables anyone, anywhere to build applications that interact with real estate in an easy, compliant way.
## What Arda Unlocks: A New Market for Real Estate
For the first time, real estate can be programmable, fractionalized, and instantly transferable—expanding the market by at least 30% and unlocking new financial models.

Imagine:
*  Owning 1% of all storefronts on 5th Avenue and trading those shares in real-time, like stocks.
*  Selling 10% of your home in minutes to pay off debt—without refinancing.
*  Listing a property across JLL, CBRE, Sotheby’s, and Airbnb simultaneously—whoever completes the transaction first updates the chain, eliminating inefficiencies and maximizing exposure.

Arda doesn’t just make real estate faster—with instant execution, composability, and an open network, Arda creates new liquidity, new financial models, and a fundamentally expanded market.

![](https://lightshift-website.s3.amazonaws.com/1741700650708_How%20Arda%20Works.jpg)
## Why Now?
For years, real estate wasn’t ready for transformation. Today, the conditions have aligned:

* Technology has caught up – Blockchains are now scalable, secure, and decentralized enough to handle trillions in global assets.
* Institutions are moving in – Over $4 billion in real estate has already been tokenized, with BlackRock, JPMorgan, and Goldman Sachs leading adoption. JPMorgan alone has processed nearly $700 billion in tokenized short-term loans.
* Regulatory frameworks are emerging – Jurisdictions from the UAE to the US are actively developing legal structures for digital property rights.

This shift is no longer hypothetical—it’s already happening. The question isn’t if real estate will be digitized, but who will define the infrastructure that powers it.
## Why Oli?
Execution is everything. And Oliver Harris is the person to build this.

* Head of Crypto and Quorum at JPMorgan – Led commercialization of Quorum, JPMorgan’s enterprise blockchain, build of JPM Coin, and oversaw crypto strategy.
* Managing Director & Head of Digital Assets Americas at Goldman Sachs – Established and led the team overseeing crypto and tokenization, shaping how institutions unlock the benefits of emerging technologies.
* Board member at Anchorage, TRM Labs, Blockdaemon, and BitGo – Deep expertise in crypto infrastructure and real-world asset digitization.
* Built a world-class team – With veterans from Visa, 10x Banking, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and leading blockchain protocols.

This is a race, not a dream. And our bet is on Oli to win it.
## How Arda Makes Money
As real estate moves on-chain, value accrues to the network itself:

* Data Access – The largest real estate database in the world. Institutions pay for historical records, ownership data, and market intelligence. Think the Bloomberg of real estate—with all data validated on-chain.
* Network Fees – Users pay to tokenize, update records, and add data to the chain—ensuring an on-chain source of truth for the world’s real estate supply.
* Transaction Fees – Every buy, sell, lend, or fractionalization event pays a small fee to the network.

With an open network, high volume, and enhanced information transparency, Arda can lower costs for users while eliminating billions in inefficiencies across brokers, lawyers, and intermediaries that are no longer needed.
## The Time is Now
Real estate has been waiting for its digital revolution—but replacing the old system takes more than tokenization.

It requires a new foundation. An operating system purpose-built for real estate.

Arda isn’t just building the next real estate company—it’s redesigning the entire operating system for how real estate functions at a global scale.

At Lightshift, we invest in foundational technology that reshapes trillion-dollar markets. That’s why we’re backing Arda—the team building the infrastructure for real estate’s digital future.

The shift has begun. The future of real estate is being built now.

*Follow [@olijharris](https://x.com/olijharris) on X for more updates or visit [arda.xyz](https://www.arda.xyz/)*



Investing in Arda: The Operating System for Real Estate