Why Manifest is Different

Why previous attempts at tokenized real estate failed -- and how Manifest is different

The Current Landscape

Today's options for real estate exposure in crypto fall into three categories, each with fundamental flaws:

1. Fractionalized Property Tokens

Projects like RealT and Lofty tokenize individual properties, making investors fractional landlords. While innovative, they inherit all the problems of direct ownership:

  • Concentrated Risk: Single property exposure with no diversification

  • Management Overhead: Dealing with tenants, maintenance, and property managers

  • Tax Complexity: K-1 forms, state-specific filings, and occasionally not available to non-U.S. investors

  • Illiquidity: Tiny secondary markets with massive bid-ask spreads

  • High Fees: 10-15% annual management fees eating into returns

2. Traditional REITs On-Chain

Some protocols simply wrap existing REITs into tokens. This approach fails because:

  • Not Permissionless: Cannot use the power of DeFi

  • Taxation: REIT dividends are taxed to the individual

  • Market Correlation: REITs price action is more akin to stocks due to being an underlying rental business with operations that can fail vs. real estate exposure like HEIs

  • Limited Access: Still subject to geographic restrictions

  • No DeFi Integration: Can't be used as collateral or in liquidity pools

3. Synthetic Real Estate Tokens

Purely synthetic tokens that track real estate indices through derivatives:

  • No Real Backing: Just promises and algorithms

  • Counterparty Risk: Dependent on oracle accuracy and protocol solvency

  • Basis Risk: Tracking errors compound over time

  • Limited Scalability: Require continuous market making activity and limited options to hedge exposure

How Manifest is Different

$USH represents a fundamentally new approach:

Real Assets, Not Synthetics

Every $USH token is backed by a portfolio of actual Home Equity Investments (HEIs) -- real mortgage contracts on real properties.

Portfolio, Not Properties

Instead of fractionalizing individual homes, Manifest aggregates many HEIs across the U.S. This creates:

  • True Diversification: Exposure to the entire market, not single properties

  • Consistent NAV: Daily pricing based on broad market movements

  • No Management Overhead: HEIs eliminate property management complexity

DeFi Native Design

Built on ERC-20 standard with full composability:

  • Collateral Ready: Use in lending protocols

  • LP Compatible: Provide liquidity on DEXs

  • Yield Bearing: Stake for additional returns through $sUSH

Global and Permissionless

True to crypto's ethos:

  • No Geographic Limits: Available worldwide

  • No Minimums: Buy $1 or $1 million

  • No Accreditation: Open to everyone

  • No Lockups: Tradable 24/7

Previous attempts tried to force traditional real estate into crypto rails. Manifest rebuilt real estate exposure from first principles for the blockchain era.

The Result

By using HEIs instead of direct property ownership, Manifest achieves what others couldn't:

Next Steps

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