Blockchain in Action: Land Surveys in Africa and Beyond

In developing countries, land ownership is probably second only to the right to life in importance.

Nigeria is a classic example where every piece of land is protected whether it is recorded or not. Except in remote areas, ancestral ownership and transfer rights are still a tradition in determining the ownership of land property.

There have been numerous cases of property claims between nation states and local administrators. This occurs primarily when governments acquire land for the purpose of development or building infrastructure. In most cases, the conflict is over the actual ownership of the land and the compensation scheme.

The Bitland Initiative

Christopher Bates of the Bitland project said that using a blockchain-based registry to keep records of rural land ownership is his company's plan. He added that this would help governments at all levels keep a property directory of their real estate. He went on to say that this usually happens in rural areas without high-speed internet and, in many cases, even electricity.

Bates said:

“Our initial intention is to focus on full stack solutions, building infrastructure locally in the form of Bitland centers with solar-powered wireless networks, because blockchain solutions cannot be used without internet, and there is no internet without electricity.”

The first official ICO and partners

Bitland has announced its first official ICO, which is scheduled to begin on August 22, 2016. Bates said the ICO aims to raise 4,000 to 5,000 bitcoins to equip the first Bitland centers in Ghana and Nigeria.

He explained that as the global operation scales up, Bitland is looking to secure government contracts to fund future centers, allowing the government to fund development. To achieve this goal, Bitland has partnered with cryptocurrency financial platform OpenLedger, Danish virtual currency exchange CCEDK, and Kottackal has officially become an external audit partner for the audit business.

Bates explained that OpenLedger is the backbone of what is known as the “Distributed Group.” This ecosystem allows companies like Bitland to utilize blockchain technology without having to worry about not having a team to ensure the technology is constantly updated.

Bates said:

“As a distributed exchange, OpenLedger allows digital currencies to be exchanged for fiat currencies. CCEDK is a partner that helps with marketing and PR. They have a team of experts working on B2B and B2C contracts, as well as writing literature and content for projects. Kottackal is an Indian company that helps tech companies get to market and get ready to scale into global markets. We hope that their presence as an audit partner will help Bitland penetrate markets outside the African continent.”

Blockchain-based land use surveys in Western countries

Bates also told Cointelegraph that his company will hold a meeting with government officials from another country next month, but the name of the country cannot be disclosed at this time. Bates said it is a Western country and not an African country.

He explained:

“We are trying to get a pilot in Ghana to test the software on the ground by October, and hopefully the center in Nigeria will be equipped by the end of the year. We are in the semifinals of the competition in Connecticut, and we will find out next week whether we make it to the next round.”

Inherent bottleneck

Christopher Franko, a blockchain expert at Borderless Technology, believes the activity is feasible, but he also acknowledges that there may be inherent bottlenecks. Franko explained that blockchain is basically a way to keep records in an immutable way. He said any type of data or record of value transfer is a great use case for blockchain, such as currency, management services, voting and property ownership.

Franko said:

“It would be very useful to create tokens that represent property ownership. In fact, that’s what we plan to do with the Borderless.tech platform. It will be interesting to see how they handle the step-by-step transfer of property. Let’s say I own a hundred acres of land, but only want to sell 1 acre or even 0.003 acres, how can we fine-tune the transfer using this system? Also, I’m concerned that in the past we’ve seen other attempts at digital assets that were then tied to real-life assets, such as precious metals. Another thing I’m concerned about is how they plan to compete with governments in this space. Will they collaborate or become competitors? We plan to create additional services that reduce costs and build bridges from legacy record keeping systems to the new trustless blockchain system so that the state can provide the right services to citizens, and in turn citizens can directly access their registry entries.”