Hi @vaporhaze, I think you may have misread that. I wrote it is completely POSSIBLE. And its no bait and switch, I'll add this to the article. I thought more people knew about LAT, as I've written about it before myself.
You can, RIGHT NOW, buy pieces of Amazon stock with LAToken! Now I see I didn't tell the whole story again, as I should have, thank you for reading, hope this helps clarify!
Yes, I apologize, I read it too fast and my mind saw 'IMpossible'.. Although I am still a skeptic about buying a representation of a purchased asset by a third party instead of just buying and owning the asset yourself... It's like buying 'paper gold' through stocks instead of buying and owning gold outright, with no custodial fees... just my two cents.
Again, the best of luck to you!
I find the comments about buying something you can't hold on to the most interesting argument against the system....mostly because all crypto is something you can't hold on to....yet it gains and loses value just like anything else does. If you were to buy into a piece of real estate....get paid a small amount of the gained equity once every 6 months, but you had never been to the property, wouldn't that ownership still have value for you?
If you buy a share of amazon stock, you can't do anything with it, except trade it for its decided value at that time. So if you buy a piece of a share....its....exactly...the...same....thing.
The world is now tokenized, you don't have to own all of anything to get use or value out of it when it comes to investments and trades.
I understand that you can't 'hold' your crypto, but I can hold the Trezor, and its contents CANNOT be touched by anyone else... Real estate that I own but have never seen is a nice analogy, and I would be all right with this AS LONG AS it has one other thing. My property can only be accessed by ONE KEY, and that I have (tangible or not) the ONLY KEY to access the property!
The great and wise Andreas Antonopoulos says, 'Not your keys, not your bitcoin!' Or like great and wiser Nick Szabo says, 'Trusted Third Parties are Security Holes'
Example, you ask; EQUIFAX...
The whole idea of crypto (for some of us, I suppose) is a decentralized currency... I buy a whole (or a 'bit') of a coin and as long as you aren't keeping it on an exchange, you have 100% full value/ownership, if that makes sense.
I don't live in a decentralized society, so I do have a 401k... A stock is an agreed upon (and backed, unlike crypto) 'share' of that company and its profits (as well as risks). If a preferred stock, you have voting power for the direction of the company...
So through these eyes... its...NOT...exactly.... the...same...thing.
But I honestly appreciate the feedback and conversation! Been on Steem for a bit now, and not had too much back and forth with valid points! Keep up the good work!
Almost all truly decentralized blockchain operations set rules, and then the community (share holders) decide where it goes from there (ie hard forks).
I have read some of the contracts, and they are written by the asset holder or their lawyer. Perhaps we are just viewing this a bit differently, let me try to close the gap.
Currently, people with loads of money (millions, hundreds of millions, etc), can already invest in assets they have never been near. Potentially anyone could, but the fact that they have the cash to back it up is what gives them value as an investor or loaner, and thus, if you don't have that level of cash, people wouldn't want to get involved with you, and for good reason, you can't back it up if something goes wrong.
So, in this situation, rather than going to a bank or an investor and paying the fees and percentages to them, you can present a contract for the liquidity you need. People can read it, then they have to apply, depending on the rules of the contract. The presenter may accept or not, depending on the application. To keep it short, I don't believe the idea is that you just throw money at assets with no assurance, and the holders don't just let anyone put their money in.
Very simply put, it's a method of allowing people who did not previously have access to the those types of investments an avenue to enter that space. It's also nothing like ebay or a shopping center, all assets must pass all requirements before ever being listed, meaning they must go to an approved appraiser, and get the proper documents in order to make the transaction official and legal.
One of the very promising aspects of it that I think many countries/governments/people will try to and maybe successfully will stomp out is that these contracts (if found legal in your country) have the potential to disrupt a large amount of income for those who are used to a large amount of income. For example, I'm purchasing a piece of property currently, and have in the past. The amount of people necessary to purchase an asset like that is absolutely ridiculous, and very expensive. Realtors, Lawyers, Title Companies, Escrow Companies, Banks, and on and on and on. If the purchase of a piece of property (lets say the whole thing for this example) could be completely legally, and all the paperwork filed, and all the tax records updated, and everything legitimized by agreeing to a digital smart contract that only executes upon the fulfillment of the laid out terms....everyone wins, except the middlemen.
LAT does not act as an escrow, they only provide a platform for an already existing market, and they are trying to streamline the processes, which includes eliminating unnecessary steps and payments that can all be done with the click of a button. Just to mention it again, this market is well at work, long before LAToken came on the scene....in fact, they're backed by an already existing asset investment company. They aren't building the crowd for the idea, they are building a service for the crowd that already exists and invests in these things, while also opening up avenues for others to be involved that previously did not have the resources to enter that space.
I enjoy tit for tat, lemme know what you think!
Okay, let me research this token and its platform and see why its important before I can give you a rational response...