Meet the CEO - Matt Andelman

Matt is both Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ABC Tokens. His interest in real estate began at Miami University (Oxford, Ohio), where he studied finance with an emphasis on real estate. Upon graduating in 2005, Matt began his real estate career at The Mega Group as Director of Development and Commercial Leasing. Five years later, in 2010, Matt joined Sperry Van Ness as a Senior Commercial Real Estate Advisor. Having worked for a commercial real estate developer and then a national commercial brokerage firm, Matt was able to learn the workings of the commercial real estate industry while also building his network of developers, brokers, lenders, and other real estate professionals.

So, if you’re looking to diversify your portfolio and considering an investment with ABC, then rest assured, the summation of Matt’s experience, relationships, knowledge, and work ethic all serve toward the success of ABC Tokens.

Matt’s History with Crypto

Matt first encountered cryptocurrency when a friend introduced him to Bitcoin in 2012. Becoming an early investor of Bitcoin, Matt enjoyed some of the earlier surges in the asset’s price. Of course, back then, nobody could have known the heights Bitcoin would reach at present time. So, like many others, Matt saw an opportunity to exit and reinvest profits into a more conservative investment, an investment Matt understood much better...commercial real estate! A respectable decision, given the reality that investment opportunities are always a moving target. Luckily, Matt’s curiosity for cryptocurrency did not end there.

Intrigued by blockchain technology, Matt continued to pursue his interest in cryptocurrency by purchasing mining rigs through a company called Bitcap. Operated with state-of-the-art software and powered by affordable green energy, Bitcap was capable of economically mining the most profitable altcoins on the market and paying out rig owners in their favorite coin of choice. A fruitful endeavor that certainly encouraged his interest as it did for many other cryptocurrency enthusiasts.

Matt’s Ambitions & Vision for ABC Tokens

Matt having a foot in both worlds served to be the natural progression that led Matt to the idea of marrying together the concepts of blockchain and real estate. Having extensive first-hand experience with commercial real estate, Matt was motivated to identify some of the key problems he had encountered that could be solved through the application of ABC Tokens.

Historically, commercial real estate has been a great performing investment. However, it’s been largely inaccessible and also unattractive to retail investors due to two reasons: illiquidity and a high barrier for entry.

To say that the real estate market is illiquid would be an understatement. Most real estate dealings are private, meaning ownership is not offered to the public. Instead, private partnerships are created with a GP/LP structure, where the limited partners (LPs) are silent with no voting rights. So, oftentimes limited partners are committed to the deal until the general partners (GPs) decide it’s time to sell, which could be several years, decades, or even longer… If an LP needs to exit prematurely, it usually means selling their interest back to the partnership for a discount. And like many others, Matt encountered situations involving family or business reasons - with no choice but to exit early and take a haircut.

Yes, illiquidity is a big issue, but there’s another big hurdle that prevents the average investor from participating. Assuming one can even find a deal, the minimum capital requirement is usually very large...sometimes $10,000 on the low end and $50,000 (or more) on the high end, per investor. For your average investor, that’s just not economically feasible, especially considering all their proverbial investment eggs would now be in just one basket. At ABC Tokens, we’ve solved these problems, offering ALL investor types access to our well-diversified, quality commercial real estate portfolio with a low capital minimum and built-in liquidity.

ABC Tokens represent ownership of the real estate. So, each ABC Token represents a fractional interest of the equity in the underlying commercial real estate portfolio. In other words, whether you own 10 or 100,000 ABC Tokens - an owner possesses fractional ownership of the portfolio equity that is backing the tokens. Additionally, given that ABC Tokens are like cryptocurrencies - they will soon be tradeable on secondary market exchanges. What does this mean? It means both democratized and liquid commercial real estate investing for all investor types, from retail to institutional, can participate and reap the benefits of the ABC Tokens platform.

Furthermore, with an ever-looming threat of hyperinflation, many investors are flocking to crypto as a means to hedge against it. In this sense, ABC Tokens can be an alternative means to diversifying one’s crypto portfolio. Did you make a killing recently with BTC, ETH, ADA, XRP, or DOGE? Investors can now take some profits, invest with ABC, and keep their money entirely in crypto. Besides lowering the barrier for entry and making real estate liquid. Matt is excited to see ABC Tokens become a means for cryptocurrency enthusiasts to diversify their risk outside of volatile assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, all while remaining in the blockchain world.

What’s Next?

Dear readers, for more insights on the backgrounds & ambitions of the team behind ABC Tokens, as well as the vision of the company for the road ahead, be sure to keep an eye out for the next article in the “Meet the Team” series.

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