New Jersey’s Bergen County has decided to digitize and bring 370,000 property deeds on-chain, representing approximately $240 billion in real estate value. The initiative marks the largest blockchain-based deed tokenization project in the U.S.
The county will partner with Balcony, a leading blockchain-based land record management firm, to implement the project over the next five years. Balcony’s platform is powered by Avalanche to fully digitize and provide a searchable chain of title across all of its 70 municipalities. This would fasten the deed process by 90%, reducing the risk of fraud, title disputes, and administrative errors.
“This is a turning point for real estate and public record systems,” Dan Silverman, CEO of Balcony, stated in a press release. “By working with the Bergen County Clerk’s Office to bring all property records on-chain, we’re demonstrating how secure, distributed systems can replace outdated infrastructure and deliver real-world value for both governments and the public,” he added.
The decision to digitize all property deeds reflects a growing nationwide trend toward blockchain adoption at the government level. Balcony is among the most populous counties in New Jersey, home to nearly one million residents and generating $500 million annually in property tax revenue.
Balcony’s platform aims to seamlessly integrate structured and unstructured records from multiple sources, leveraging AI to organize, analyze, and make sense of complex data at scale. On the other hand, Avalanche networks ease and speed of launching an L1, and the breadth of architectural customization, makes it a good choice for intelligent and transparent government recordkeeping.