The basics:

• Bergen County, Balcony to digitize 370,000 property deeds
• Nation’s largest blockchain deed project uses Avalanche tech
• Move improves security, speeds up processing
• Initiative brings $240B in NJ real estate value on-chain

A landmark blockchain deed deal in New Jersey is big news for the state, and more broadly, as Balcony and Bergen County pursue efforts to bring approximately $240 billion in real estate value on-chain.

The Bergen County Clerk’s office and Hoboken-based Balcony announced plans to digitize 370,000 property deeds May 28. At the news conference, the partners detailed the initiative as the largest blockchain-based deed tokenization project in U.S. history. The partnership includes New Jersey’s most populous county (with nearly 1 million residents), generating $500 million in annual property tax revenue.

Tokenizing the data offers a tamper-proof, fully digitized and searchable chain of title. In addition to cutting processing times – by more than 90%, according to Balcony – the move reduces the risk of fraud, title disputes and administrative errors. Speaking during the event, Balcony CEO Dan Silverman identified the collaboration as “a turning point for real estate and public records systems.”

“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 outdate infrastructure and deliver real-world value for both governments and the public,” Silverman said.

Following the event, NJBIZ caught up with Silverman and Bergen County Clerk John Hogan for more insight.

After meeting over the course of three years, the Clerk’s Office and Balcony entered a five-year agreement. Silverman said the contract is valued at just under $100,000 per year. Bergen County will leverage Balcony’s platform, powered by Avalanche.

At the forefront

“Most people think about cryptocurrency when they hear blockchain. Crypto’s an application of blockchain, but it’s not everything,” Silverman explained. “There’s blockchain infrastructure that can power other real world use cases and other real world industries, including real estate and government adoption.”

Exposed to blockchain as part of a state committee before COVID, Hogan explained the pandemic offered more time to dig into the tech and how Bergen County could use it. “My office has always been in the forefront of technology,” Hogan explained to NJBIZ. “When I came in here, the office was so behind technology, it was in the last century, even though it was this century.”

That scenario is not uncommon for government offices. They often emerge as good targets because these entities typically employ outdated and legacy technology, tools and infrastructure, leaving them susceptible to modern-day threats, like ransomware attacks.

Hogan said his Bergen County office has turned its tech problems around to become a leader in the state. For example, they adopted eRecording – the electronic filing of deeds and mortgages – two years before a state mandate required it. Now, Hogan says about 80% of all land transactions take place this way — saving time, money, personnel and more. He also highlighted other updates, such as real-time election reporting and a new website.

Taking all that into account, blockchain seemed like a good fit. “It provides greater security for our residents; it provides anti-fraud measures — no hacking of any of that stuff,” Hogan said.

Building trust

During the news conference, the partners noted a slight uptick in fraudulent deed submissions. Without sounding an alarm, Hogan said the transition will help stop such schemes before they get far.

The county’s land transaction trust fund will foot the bill, Hogan said, adding that the effort will not reach “into taxpayers pockets.”

“Our whole thought is to use this for land records — where it really comes from,” he said. “All of our other initiatives have been taken care of … So now we were looking for the next big project that we can take on, and this is it.”

And as Silverman added, if the work “prevents just one ransomware attack over the five years, it’ll more than pay for itself.”

[W]e were looking for the next big project that we can take on, and this is it.
— John Hogan, Bergen County clerk

According to cybersecurity company Purplesec, the average cost of a ransomware attack in 2024 was $5.13 million. That figure includes the ransom payment, recovery costs as well as costs pertaining to damage control and reestablishing customer trust. Over the past six years, the company’s report noted that average cost has increased 574%.

As for the results from tokenization, Silverman said the effects are instant. “So, across the county, the tax board and the municipality, they’ll be able to see deeds being recorded in real time instantly, and the source is trustless because it’s on the blockchain. So it’s been issued directly from the county clerk’s office. It’s an original document and everyone could look and see it at the same time, which is important.”

In blockchain and cryptocurrency contexts, trustless means the system does not rely on a central authority or third party; it is instead driven by a decentralized, automated process based on the system’s parameters and recorded and verified by a distributed network of nodes.

Process improvements

Silverman pointed out that the more nodes in use, the more secure the environment. He also said AI plays a big role in addition to blockchain.

Despite the technology at play, the process requires manual work to get records on-chain, as well as a full verification process, Hogan explained.

“[M]any times when deeds come in to be recorded, there are anomalies in there. There’s things that are missing and they have to be returned to be then processed again. And the days’ worth of deeds can’t be officially recorded until every deed that was submitted that day is 100% accurate,” Silverman said. “So that accounts for a lot of the delays that happen.”

Enter AI.  Now, “we could detect a lot of those anomalies before they even come in. So, we could send deeds back quicker and process them much faster,” he continued. “We want to get to a point where 90% of them are accepted right away as opposed to 50%.”

“The Avalanche blockchain offers the speed, reliability and flexibility needed to support a project of this scale. Its infrastructure is built to handle large amounts of data quickly and securely, which is exactly what’s needed to modernize how property records are managed and transform how public institutions operate,” Luigi D’Onorio DeMeo, chief strategy officer of Avalanche developer Ava Labs, told reporters.

Balcony’s digital Asset Registry allows government officials to adopt a unified approach to data management. Doing so helps identifying correlations between datasets, and can uncover key patterns and discrepancies. By leveraging its proprietary distributed ledger technology, the system creates an immutable, government-validated chain of title.

Company with a view

Balcony holds the distinction of being among first graduates of the New Jersey Fintech – or NJ FAST – Accelerator at Stevens Institute of Technology. Silverman said the company currently does work here, in New York and in Wyoming.

While the latter leads states in blockchain adoption nationwide, according to Silverman, he added, “New Jersey is leapfrogging over.”

“I think that this initiative may put New Jersey on the map as a leader in blockchain innovation across the country,” Silverman continued.

That would also boost Balcony’s already building reputation. In addition to Bergen County, the company also works with local municipalities including Camden, Orange, Morristown, Cliffside Park and Fort Lee. In total, Balcony says it is now bringing over 460,000 properties and $290 billion in real estate value on-chain across New Jersey.

“When we started with municipalities, the idea was to aggregate all the data in one place. So we turn every single property into this digital vault that could store all data and sources where that data came from.

“In every municipality, there’s all these disparate systems because the tax assessor, the tax collector, the zoning department, the construction department — they all use different softwares and they don’t speak to each other. And that’s obviously an issue and delays things. So we try to bring in all the data from all the different departments into one roof,” Silverman said.

The Bergen County move adds a critical piece. Now Balcony has the opportunity to look at the county’s 70 municipalities and create connectability directly from from one to the other, Silverman said.

Bigger is better

The implications extend beyond the county level. “The beautiful thing about blockchain is that you could create interconnectability and transparency, while also keeping information private,” Silverman said. “So you could permission certain information to the people that need it. But you could create a state system where the right people are accessing the right data and the rest of the information is held privately.”

The bigger it gets, actually, the more secure it gets.
— Dan Silverman, CEO, Balcony

And “The bigger it gets, actually, the more secure it gets,” he added.

He also says the work will offer longevity in terms of security and relevance amid rising threats.

“As technology increases and the advancements in artificial intelligence with generative AI, fraudulent documents could be spun up in instant that are really indistinguishable from the real thing. So, we need to combat that with also keeping up to par with technology,” Silverman said.

Usability is also key.

User friendly

Silverman said the goal is to make the interface, which will live on the county’s website, intuitive and easy to use, while also offering a modern feel. He specifically cited the user experience on Zillow, underscoring the importance of creating something that people are used to interacting with.

When the Bergen County Clerk’s office rolled out its eRecording changes, Hogan said it was a major step forward. “And it was like people were fearful,” he added. To support that transition, Hogan said they held education meetings for title searchers, attorneys, real estate professionals, and others. Moving forward with the tokenization, the county clerk said his office plans to offer similar training and outreach.

“What I want do – what I’ve always wanted to do – is make any process with my office so much easier for the residents who live in our county,” said Hogan. “Our ultimate goal … is that when this is all done, if one of our residents is sitting in their living room and they want to see who owned the property from day one, they could go back on their laptop and search their property from the beginning. That’s a big task to do right now.”

But not for long.