<p>Always dreamed of owning a Ferrari but can’t afford it? Well, this may sound vaguely familiar: The blockchain has a solution for you.</p>.<p>CurioInvest, an investment platform, and MERJ Exchange Ltd, a Seychelles-based digital asset exchange, are partnering to offer tokens backed by collectible cars. The companies say tokenizing the luxury assets as an investment could make them widely accessible to a bigger pool of people.</p>.<p>“You can have a guy in Uganda who’s able to invest in a rare car that’s kept in a vault in Stuttgart, tokenized by a company in Liechtenstein and it all fits within this recognized regulatory environment,” Jim Needham, head of digital strategy at MERJ, said by phone. “It’s a perfect illustration of what this, as a tool, what blockchain technology and distributed ledger technology can do to democratize the capital markets.”</p>.<p>CT1, as the token is known, is part of the resurgence of offerings emerging amid a recent bounce in cryptocurrency prices. In fact, the method -- which lets companies bypass the venture-capital process and allows investors to purchase fractions of an asset -- originally gained traction during the crypto craze in 2017 and 2018. Back then, hundreds of companies took advantage of the mania to raise billions in funding.</p>.<p>The bubble burst after regulators started to crack down, citing fraud and questionable practices from a number of ICOs that cost their investors millions in lost funds.</p>.<p>New offerings have slowed significantly over the past year after topping out at $5.8 billion in July 2018. Companies raised about $11 million in January, according to data compiled by CoinSchedule.</p>.<p>But CurioInvest and MERJ are betting that the value of rare and collectible assets -- which includes vintage cars, wines, and jewellery, among other things -- will continue to appreciate. Vintage cars, for instance, returned more than 330% in the 10 years through 2017, according to a report from Knight Frank.</p>.<p>The two firms are planning to bring as many as 500 collectible cars worth over $200 million onto the exchange.</p>
<p>Always dreamed of owning a Ferrari but can’t afford it? Well, this may sound vaguely familiar: The blockchain has a solution for you.</p>.<p>CurioInvest, an investment platform, and MERJ Exchange Ltd, a Seychelles-based digital asset exchange, are partnering to offer tokens backed by collectible cars. The companies say tokenizing the luxury assets as an investment could make them widely accessible to a bigger pool of people.</p>.<p>“You can have a guy in Uganda who’s able to invest in a rare car that’s kept in a vault in Stuttgart, tokenized by a company in Liechtenstein and it all fits within this recognized regulatory environment,” Jim Needham, head of digital strategy at MERJ, said by phone. “It’s a perfect illustration of what this, as a tool, what blockchain technology and distributed ledger technology can do to democratize the capital markets.”</p>.<p>CT1, as the token is known, is part of the resurgence of offerings emerging amid a recent bounce in cryptocurrency prices. In fact, the method -- which lets companies bypass the venture-capital process and allows investors to purchase fractions of an asset -- originally gained traction during the crypto craze in 2017 and 2018. Back then, hundreds of companies took advantage of the mania to raise billions in funding.</p>.<p>The bubble burst after regulators started to crack down, citing fraud and questionable practices from a number of ICOs that cost their investors millions in lost funds.</p>.<p>New offerings have slowed significantly over the past year after topping out at $5.8 billion in July 2018. Companies raised about $11 million in January, according to data compiled by CoinSchedule.</p>.<p>But CurioInvest and MERJ are betting that the value of rare and collectible assets -- which includes vintage cars, wines, and jewellery, among other things -- will continue to appreciate. Vintage cars, for instance, returned more than 330% in the 10 years through 2017, according to a report from Knight Frank.</p>.<p>The two firms are planning to bring as many as 500 collectible cars worth over $200 million onto the exchange.</p>