A new Facebook-supported blockchain and cryptocurrency, called Libra, was announced today. The goal: a new global currency. But unlike other cryptocurrencies, this one will be backed by a basket of government-issued securities and other investments.

A new governing body called the Libra Association has also been formed, with its 28 founding members (see above image) contributing both capital (at least $10 million) and expertise. Going forward, they will help shape the network. It's important to note that Facebook will have the same status as all other members of the Association.

Here's an excerpt from today's WSJ:

Facebook said Tuesday the network underpinning the new cryptocurrency would be governed by the Libra Association, an independent, not-for-profit organization based in Geneva. Facebook named more than two-dozen founding partners in that association, including Uber, Visa Inc. and a handful of venture-capital firms and blockchain companies like Coinbase.

The other thing that differentiates Libra from other cryptocurrencies is that when it launches next year (2020), it will do so inside some of the most widely used consumer apps on the internet, including Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. That translates into somewhere around 2.4 billion active users.

Many within in the industry are already speculating that this could be what finally brings the crypto ecosystem into the mainstream, which is, I guess, why companies such as Visa and Mastercard have already signed on to the project. I am also thrilled to see the Creative Destruction Lab listed above. They are a seed-stage program based out of the University of Toronto.

If you'd like to learn more about Libra, here's the official website and here's a good solid overview by TechCrunch.

Image: Libra

“The term “bubble” refers to a substantial and sustained mispricing of an asset, the existence of which cannot be proved unless it bursts.” - UBS

Last week UBS released its 2017 Global Real Estate Bubble Index. At the top of the list was none other than Toronto, followed by Stockholm, Munich, Vancouver and Sydney. And at the bottom of the list was Chicago – a city that UBS feels is undervalued.

Here is the full list of index scores:

The UBS index is a weighted average of the following five sub-indices:

1. Price-to-income
   

2. Price-to-rent (fundamental valuation)
   

3. Change in mortgage-to-GDP ratio
   

4. Change in construction-to-GDP ratio (economic distortion)
   

5. Relative price-city-to-country indicator
   

If you look at their price-to-income benchmark in isolation, Toronto drops down to the middle of the pack along with Geneva and San Francisco. Hong Kong, London and Paris sit at the top with the most unaffordable housing. 

Still, UBS credits “an overly loose monetary policy”, foreign demand, tight zoning, and rental market regulations for the eroding housing affordability in Toronto and Vancouver.

One of the challenges, of course, is that the capital flowing into real estate is not all local – it’s also global. And many cities around the world are seeing high price-to-income multiples, perhaps because of that. 

So exactly how much decoupling from local fundamentals should now be considered reasonable in our globalized world? And to what extent is this a result of “superstar economics?”

Here’s an excerpt from the UBS report:

The economics of Superstars explains why, in some professions, show business for instance, “small numbers of people earn enormous amounts of money and dominate the activities in which they engage.” By analogous reasoning, prices in the most attractive cities are expected to outperform average cities or rural areas in the long run. Hong Kong, London and San Francisco are exemplars of this theory.

The intuition is that the national and global growth of high-wealth households creates continued excess demand for the best locations. So, as long as supply cannot increase rapidly, prices in the so-called “Superstar cities” are supposed to decouple from rents, incomes and the respective countrywide price level.

I guess this is one of the reasons why bubbles are proven after the fact. If you would like to download a copy of the full UBS report, click here.

The MIT Senseable City Lab recently developed something called the Green View Index. It is a measure of a city’s tree canopy. Below are the GVIs for Boston (18.2%), Geneva (21.4%), London (12.7%), and New York (13.5%). You may have to zoom in.

And here is a screenshot of Toronto. We have a GVI of 19.5%.

The index was developed by methodically scanning for trees in Google Street View panoramas. The reason street view was used – as opposed to aerial photography – was so that they could capture the human experience at street level.

All of MIT’s interactive city maps can be found here. It’s also interesting to pan around and see which neighborhoods are the greenest – particularly if you are familiar with the city.

One thing I noticed is that large green spaces such as Central Park, High Park, and Stanley Park don’t show up as very green. And that’s because the index uses car-based street view data. I feel like these green spaces should count for something though.

A new Facebook-supported blockchain and cryptocurrency, called Libra, was announced today. The goal: a new global currency. But unlike other cryptocurrencies, this one will be backed by a basket of government-issued securities and other investments.

A new governing body called the Libra Association has also been formed, with its 28 founding members (see above image) contributing both capital (at least $10 million) and expertise. Going forward, they will help shape the network. It's important to note that Facebook will have the same status as all other members of the Association.

Here's an excerpt from today's WSJ:

Facebook said Tuesday the network underpinning the new cryptocurrency would be governed by the Libra Association, an independent, not-for-profit organization based in Geneva. Facebook named more than two-dozen founding partners in that association, including Uber, Visa Inc. and a handful of venture-capital firms and blockchain companies like Coinbase.

The other thing that differentiates Libra from other cryptocurrencies is that when it launches next year (2020), it will do so inside some of the most widely used consumer apps on the internet, including Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. That translates into somewhere around 2.4 billion active users.

Many within in the industry are already speculating that this could be what finally brings the crypto ecosystem into the mainstream, which is, I guess, why companies such as Visa and Mastercard have already signed on to the project. I am also thrilled to see the Creative Destruction Lab listed above. They are a seed-stage program based out of the University of Toronto.

If you'd like to learn more about Libra, here's the official website and here's a good solid overview by TechCrunch.

Image: Libra

“The term “bubble” refers to a substantial and sustained mispricing of an asset, the existence of which cannot be proved unless it bursts.” - UBS

Last week UBS released its 2017 Global Real Estate Bubble Index. At the top of the list was none other than Toronto, followed by Stockholm, Munich, Vancouver and Sydney. And at the bottom of the list was Chicago – a city that UBS feels is undervalued.

Here is the full list of index scores:

The UBS index is a weighted average of the following five sub-indices:

1. Price-to-income
   

2. Price-to-rent (fundamental valuation)
   

3. Change in mortgage-to-GDP ratio
   

4. Change in construction-to-GDP ratio (economic distortion)
   

5. Relative price-city-to-country indicator
   

If you look at their price-to-income benchmark in isolation, Toronto drops down to the middle of the pack along with Geneva and San Francisco. Hong Kong, London and Paris sit at the top with the most unaffordable housing. 

Still, UBS credits “an overly loose monetary policy”, foreign demand, tight zoning, and rental market regulations for the eroding housing affordability in Toronto and Vancouver.

One of the challenges, of course, is that the capital flowing into real estate is not all local – it’s also global. And many cities around the world are seeing high price-to-income multiples, perhaps because of that. 

So exactly how much decoupling from local fundamentals should now be considered reasonable in our globalized world? And to what extent is this a result of “superstar economics?”

Here’s an excerpt from the UBS report:

The economics of Superstars explains why, in some professions, show business for instance, “small numbers of people earn enormous amounts of money and dominate the activities in which they engage.” By analogous reasoning, prices in the most attractive cities are expected to outperform average cities or rural areas in the long run. Hong Kong, London and San Francisco are exemplars of this theory.

The intuition is that the national and global growth of high-wealth households creates continued excess demand for the best locations. So, as long as supply cannot increase rapidly, prices in the so-called “Superstar cities” are supposed to decouple from rents, incomes and the respective countrywide price level.

I guess this is one of the reasons why bubbles are proven after the fact. If you would like to download a copy of the full UBS report, click here.

The MIT Senseable City Lab recently developed something called the Green View Index. It is a measure of a city’s tree canopy. Below are the GVIs for Boston (18.2%), Geneva (21.4%), London (12.7%), and New York (13.5%). You may have to zoom in.

And here is a screenshot of Toronto. We have a GVI of 19.5%.

The index was developed by methodically scanning for trees in Google Street View panoramas. The reason street view was used – as opposed to aerial photography – was so that they could capture the human experience at street level.

All of MIT’s interactive city maps can be found here. It’s also interesting to pan around and see which neighborhoods are the greenest – particularly if you are familiar with the city.

One thing I noticed is that large green spaces such as Central Park, High Park, and Stanley Park don’t show up as very green. And that’s because the index uses car-based street view data. I feel like these green spaces should count for something though.