During the past few months, we had the pleasure of being the consultants of Mr. Abou Shanab Abdalla, who had the brilliant idea of using Blockchain for both entrepreneurial and social purposes with a brilliant application in the real estate business.
This idea turned into a project named Axioma Holding, led by Mr. Aboushanab, who agreed to explain us how it works in this interview.
Interview to Mr. Aboushanab
BCU: Good afternoon, Abou, Axioma is an ambitious project that, if emulated, it could revolutionise the real estate sector. Where does the idea come from?
AA: Good afternoon, I answer your question beginning with a wish: I wish that AXIOMA will be emulated in the future, because the numbers in the sector of real estate auctions in Italy, where AXIOMA operates, are at least 70 billions of euro worth.
If this happens, it means we developed our business in an ethical and socially useful way, solving a huge social issue.
The idea comes from my participation to a convention in Dubai in February 2017 about cryptocurrencies and Blockchain. I won’t hide the fact that until that day, I had no knowledge on the topic. After the event I was very doubtful, and I asked myself one very question: what base guarantees the investment to possessors of any kind of crypto?
The answer came to me in December 2018 (I had been deeply studying Blockchain). I met a good friend of mine who was auctioning his home, telling me about discomfort, humiliation, and all the problematic bureaucracy behind his eviction.
In that very moment I had an idea on how cryptocurrencies could help to solve this problem: take a real and tangible asset, buy it at 30% of its market value, refurbish it, tokenise it, and put it at previous owner’s disposal, giving them priority for an eventual re-purchase, by paying a monthly rent.
BCU: Could you briefly explain how it works and how small investors can benefit from it?
AA: AXIOMA works in this way:
- An interested person or business buys AXT tokens paying with fiat or any other cryptocurency accepted on our platform. These token will be store in a proprietary wallet where income and outcome conversions regarding the project are made.
- There are numerous advantages for small and big investors: we reckon a 9% a year of profit, paid monthly for 80% of amount and at the end of the year for the remainder. The profit valuation was documented and developed in the white paper of the project.
- On top of mere economic benefits, the participants also contribute in helping the community by doing some good in an ethical and socially useful way, satisfying one of the fundamental needs of Maslaw’s pyramid.
BCU: The project is mainly focused on auctioned properties, with social implications, too. Would you explain them, please?
AA: According to data from a survey conducted by Astasy, we calculated that in 2018, in Italy, there were 254,000 residential buildings on the auction market, for a total value of over 50 billion euros.
This means that 254,000 families are living an enormous distress that doesn’t help community growth, because evicted people no longer pay taxes and maintenance expenses, and the less money comes in the treasury of State, the higher fiscal pressure will be.
The psychological impact of our project on people living this condition is very strong, because it gives dignity back to those who lost their home because of many factors, including their own responsibility.
Our job is adopting an ethical and socially useful solution, without looking for guilt of such distress. We decided to do that as a gesture of dedication and love for people, and we carry on with determination and enthusiasm.
BCU: Cryptocurrencies and security token, i.e.: ABYcoin, AXTcoin, and RAAcoin are involved in the investment process. What are their roles in the operation?
AA: Like I said before, because of people’s behaviour when something new comes out, I realised we had to use three different kinds of crypto in this project:
- ABYcoin, a utility token we have been authorised to issue, thanks to the team of Blockchain ConsultUs, by Estonian government. This token can be purchased on the platform Waves.exchange and its growth mechanism is regulated by an algorithm: those who buy ABYcoins today, pay a price that is always higher than the previous week. Furthermore, the mechanism blocks any underpriced purchase or sale of ABYcoins in order to avoid any speculation, which is the part people like most.
- RAAcoin is a currency token whose value is linked to Euro. We created it in order to have an asset on which we can pay off the profits of the project and reward growth plans of people involved in this. In the future, it will be used in the Axioma community as a currency to exchange products and services developed in a specific marketplace.
- AXTcoin is a security token, the core of the real estate projects that Blockchain ConsultUs is following in order to get all the necessary authorisations for issuing and for launching an STO.
Let me summarise: the investor will be able to buy real estate tokens via fiat, bitcoin, ether, ABYcoin, get the profit either in Euro or RAAcoin, and spend it on whatever they want, helped by the simplicity and security guaranteed from the personal multi-wallet where they can observe all transactions and conversions.
BCU: You obviously have your own onboarding processes and a KYC policy. How do you put them into practice and how long do they take?
AA: Of course. Since the very beginning, we took care of compliance, from AML to terrorism fighting, so we implemented our KYC procedure in collaboration with our technical partner Noku, who developed the technology behind our project.
The procedure, apparently complicated, is very fast. In order to do it correctly, it is fundamental that photos and document scans are of a high quality.
BCU: Your operations happen in Italy, but what is your jurisdiction? What was the decisional process that led you to your final choice?
AA: We operate in Italy, the problem we wanted to solve is Italian. However, in Italy there is no regulation that makes the attainment of the authorisations smooth for the development of Blockchain-related projects, cryptocurrencies are seen with circumspection, and it is necessary, in order to have guarantees, to look at foreign jurisdictions that in our case match with Estonia.
BCU: What compliance challenges did you face?
AA: From this point of view, we benefited from our collaboration with Blockchain ConsultUs, as they are meticulously taking care of any authorisation application with the Estonian authorities.
Thanks to our consistent behavioural patterns and to the transparency of our documentation, we are not facing any particular challenge. Estonia is an avant-garde country in the Blockchain world, and has clear and solid answers in therms of rights and timing.
BCU: Are there any particular laws and regulations from which Axioma could benefit, if implemented?
AA: We believe that a project, in order to be sustainable, should be based on a sustainable business model. Axioma is sustainable. As far as we know, there is no support to whom intends to develop Blockchain-related projects, at the moment, here in Italy.
BCU: What future do you see for Axioma?
AA: We would like to create an international community that shares the same principles with a social identity towards a business model that can help people, earning in ethics.
We want to extend our project out of the Italian border, beginning with Spain, Greece, and France, after consolidating it in Italy.
I would like to thank all my partners, Blockchain ConsultUs, Noku, my collaborators, and all the people who trust us to do this.
BCU: Thank you for being such a magnificent partner, Abou!
