Democratizing finance through a virtual exploratory market

Frankly, I’m not 100% sure what to make of this yet, but the founder brought this new virtual financial market to my attention and I found it intriguing enough to share it with our readers.

According to the founder, amuktrade.com’s principal goal is to facilitate quick speculative asset pricing based on user estimates and equally novel quick cashless trading through exchanging of shares of large, illiquid assets like real estate. So assets that are currently hard to price would be priced (virtually) by leveraging the collective wisdom of the site’s users. Users can then exchange their virtual asset shares by join trading communities where they can hedge risks, diversify their portfolios and share investment rewards.

What problems might this solve? The founder has turned her attention to real estate. A homeowner, for example, could decide to sell fractional ownership interests (i.e., shares) in their home, allowing them to acquire and/or keep their homes without paying the high cost of full ownership. For someone facing foreclosure, selling a 49% of the ownership interest in her home is surely better than having to sell it or lose it entirely. Selling and buying shares in commercial real estate and vacation properties is already common, so why not personal real estate? Could be handy in a time of crisis, but I could also see how this could potentially accelerate the kind of absurdly risky and opaque behavior that triggered the crisis in the first place.

Love to hear your thoughts on this.