Hi everyone, my name is Jerry and I’m the CEO of Lofty. I would like to take this time to introduce myself and address a video that’s come to our attention recently. We want to be detailed in our response and break everything down one by one, so this will be a long-read.

The TLDR is that Kevin did not do enough research on how our platform works and also didn’t use the numbers properly in his examples, so many of his claims were just misinformation.

Here is the video that was released on Thursday, May 2nd, 2024 by a creator known as “Meet Kevin”. He may have changed the content, images, or edited the video by the time you read my response here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFvA5gczPZY&t=28s

In this video, Kevin asserts that Lofty is a scam. We’re 100% not a scam by any definition of that word and this will be obvious to any of our over 7,500 active users on the platform. In fact, one can see some of their comments trying to correct Kevin in the comment section in the video. We also have a track record of servicing our customers over time. We are not a new company; Lofty, in its current iteration, was launched in May of 2021, so we have been operating and servicing our users since then with no issues.

I’m not sure what exactly motivated Kevin to make this video initially. It didn’t appear he did any research on our platform or even read some of the basic FAQs in our learning section on the website. He also never reached out to anyone from our company to ask questions or confirm details.

Before I dive into my response, I think it’s important to set the context and tell you all what Lofty actually is and what we do as a company.

What is Lofty?

Lofty is a marketplace to buy and sell fractional ownership in real estate properties in seconds for as little as $50.

Anyone can come to list a property on Lofty for sale. We tokenize the property for the seller and give them all the tokens. They can then list as much or as little of it as they want for sale on the marketplace.

There are thousands of investors from around the world using Lofty to invest and build their own real estate portfolios. Many of them have also listed and sold partial ownership in properties they already owned (including their primary residences).

We’re the only platform that lets you buy AND sell fractional ownership with no restrictions or lock-up periods.

Now, we’re launching a new feature that allows you to instantly buy and sell ownership in properties without the requirement of a traditional counterparty. So, your real estate transaction experience will be the same as if you bought a share of AAPL on Robinhood.

How does this work?

Every property’s deed is legally held by a unique WY DAO LLC. Unlike a traditional LLC that has a centralized managing member/partner, these LLCs are algorithmically managed through smart-contracts on the blockchain.

Every member has equal power and voting rights based on how much of the LLC they own. So, by owning 10% of a DAO, you legally own 10% of the underlying property. The tokens are legal representations of ownership in the LLC; whoever owns tokens of the LLC, also owns the LLC, which means they also own the property.

Co-ownership of properties is very common in the US and is no different than if you co-owned a house with family members or close friends. But instead of informally discussing how to manage things over the phone or in meetings, the management process is formalized through the “governance program”, where members vote on all management decisions. One token equals one vote and a super majority of 60% is required for any decisions to pass.

We don’t manage your properties nor do we sell properties to you. Instead, you’re directly buying from and selling to other people on the platform. Your funds never touch our accounts and you settle directly with each other using the blockchain through smart contracts. We don’t take a cut of your earnings or charge you management fees. Instead, we make a 5% transaction fee for every transaction on the platform. It’s split, so that the seller pays 2.5% and the buyer pays 2.5% as well.