What

Tykes is a Web3-based real estate community and marketplace that seeks to merge real estate with the blockchain. At present, most of its content and product revolves around a Discord-based community, through which community members can purchase real estate-related classes. It’s soon launching a marketplace, through which suppliers—from financial service providers to marble countertop manufacturers—can offer their goods and services. 

Why

According to Amr Samaha, Tykes’s Co-Founder and COO, the founding team approaches Tykes as a way to fill a real estate knowledge gap in the market. Individuals and institutions alike—namely proptech giants like Zillow—have a hard time breaking into property investment and management, in part because of strategic information-based shortcomings. Furthermore, with its sights eventually set on fractional ownership of properties, Tykes thinks it can help establish syndicated competitors to companies like Blackstone, which Samaha believes are on a path to dominating the real-estate market.

How

Tykes’s platform revolves around Tycoin, the community’s proprietary token. Community members receive Tycoin in exchange for staking NFTs; they then use the coin to pay for classes as well as goods and services on the marketplace. Samaha said Tycoin is pegged to the dollar in an effort to avoid turning Tycoin into a speculative asset like other cryptocurrencies. “We didn't want people to think of it as a means to get rich—that's not the point,” Samaha said. “The point of the coin is for people to be able to learn more about real estate and use services at steeply discounted rates.”

In that respect, Tykes’s use of a coin departs from the use case for many other crypto projects. (And, it’s worth noting, Tykes is partially Web3 while also using more traditional platforms like Zoom for lesson modules.) “We don't want it to be perceived as this liquid asset that people can make money on by just sitting back and getting passive income,” Samaha continued, referring to Tycoin’s stable value. ”The purpose of the community is for people to be active in it, to learn more, to invest more in themselves and the community at large.” 

Tykes is solidifying its marketplace before announcing other products, but it’s publicly stated its interest in syndication-based blockchain technologies. Moving into the syndication space would let Tykes’ community automate collective real-estate investments, and would pivot Tykes’s product roadmap further into Web3.