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description: A vision for global access to American assets
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# Genesis Story

## Background

U.S. real estate represents one of the world's largest asset classes at $47 trillion. International demand for exposure to this market exceeds $70 billion annually. Yet accessing American real estate remains difficult for most global investors due to high minimums, complex regulations, and operational barriers.

The crypto ecosystem demonstrated that financial products could be made globally accessible. Bitcoin created borderless money. Stablecoins made dollars programmable. The logical next step: bringing real-world assets onchain.

## The Observation

During DeFi Summer, Manifest's founders were living in Buenos Aires and conducting research on crypto protocols. At the time, Argentina was experiencing crushing inflation (\~95%), and they witnessed something remarkable: everyday Argentinians were using dollar-denominated stablecoins like $USDT to preserve their wealth.

This wasn't crypto speculation. This was practical problem-solving. For generations, Argentinians had sought ways to protect their savings from currency devaluation, previously relying on hard money dealers to access physical dollars. Stablecoins solved the same generational problem but cheaper, faster, and safer than traditional methods.

The pattern was clear: blockchain technology wasn't just creating new financial instruments—it was making essential assets accessible to people who needed them most. Nathaniel and Val recognized that other real-world assets would follow a similar adoption curve, starting with crypto-native users and expanding to mainstream adoption.

## The Insight

Stablecoins showed that crypto adoption accelerates when it solves an everyday problem: making dollars accessible where they weren’t before. The bigger lesson wasn’t about dollars — it was that blockchains can unlock essential assets at global scale.

Manifest’s insight is that U.S. real estate fits that same pattern. It’s one of the most demanded and proven assets in the world, but nearly impossible to access outside its borders. The opportunity is to treat housing not as a local market, but as a global financial primitive.

## The Approach

Manifest applies the stablecoin model to real estate. Just as $USDT provides global dollar access, [$USH](../tokens/what-is-usdush) provides global U.S. real estate access. The protocol removes traditional barriers while maintaining the underlying value proposition of U.S. real estate investment.

Starting with residential real estate through [Home Equity Investments](../home-equity-investments-heis/hei-market-overview), Manifest creates liquid, permissionless exposure to U.S. housing. The underlying blockchain infrastructure enables expansion to other asset classes as the protocol develops.

The technology exists. The demand is documented. Manifest connects them.

## Next: Why Manifest is Different?

Learn how Manifest's approach differs fundamentally from [previous real estate tokenization attempts](why-manifest-is-different).
