Bergen County to Tokenize $240 Billion in Property on Balcony's Platform, Marking Largest Blockchain Deed Initiative in U.S.

Powered by Avalanche, the five-year project lays the groundwork for nationwide rollout of on-chain property records

BERGEN COUNTY, N.J., May 28, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Balcony, a leader in blockchain-based land record management, has signed a five-year agreement with the Bergen County Clerk's Office, New Jersey, 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 U.S. history and will cover New Jersey's most populous county, home to nearly one million residents and generating $500 million annually in property tax revenue.

By leveraging Balcony's platform powered by Avalanche – Bergen County will gain a tamper-proof, fully digitized and searchable chain of title across all of its 70 municipalities – cutting deed processing time by over 90%, while dramatically reducing the risk of fraud, title disputes, and administrative errors. In 2024, reports showed 72% of ransomware attacks targeting state and local governments demanded payouts exceeding $1 million.

"This is a turning point for real estate and public record systems," said Dan Silverman, CEO of Balcony. "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Clerk's Office to bring all property records on-chain, we're demonstrating how secure, distributed systems can replace outdated infrastructure and deliver real-world value for both governments and the public."

This partnership is part of Balcony's broader push to modernize government real estate systems across New Jersey and beyond. In addition to Bergen County, Balcony is working with municipalities including Camden, Orange, Morristown, Cliffside Park and Fort Lee. In Orange, the platform uncovered nearly $1 million in lost municipal revenue, previously hidden due to incomplete or outdated records.

"Property records form the foundation of trust between governments and the communities they serve," said Gregg Lester, President of Balcony. "By bringing this critical infrastructure on-chain, we're not only streamlining operations, but also safeguarding public trust, unlocking smarter data for better decision-making, and laying the groundwork for cities and counties across the country to embrace a more transparent, accessible, and future-ready approach to land record management."

Balcony's digital Asset Registry allows government officials to adopt a unified approach to data management and help identify correlations between datasets, uncovering key patterns and discrepancies. By leveraging its proprietary distributed ledger technology, the system creates an immutable, government-validated chain of title. 

"This initiative is about improving the lives of our residents," said John Hogan, County Clerk of Bergen County. "By digitizing property records, we are making the process simpler, faster, and more secure for homeowners, businesses, and future generations. Our plan is to use this forward-thinking approach to enhance transparency, reduce delays, and protect against hacks ensuring that Bergen County remains a leader in innovation and service to our community."

Its decision to digitize all property deeds reflects a growing nationwide trend toward blockchain adoption at the government level—aimed at improving transparency, efficiency, and public trust in official records. In total, Balcony is now bringing over 460,000 properties and $290 billion in real estate value on-chain across New Jersey, marking a new era of digitized government recordkeeping.

"Blockchain is continuing to solve complex, real-world problems," said Luigi D'Onorio DeMeo, Chief Strategy Officer of Ava Labs. "Balcony is positioned to become the trusted platform standard for this generational shift in real estate recordkeeping. 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."

The county's adoption of deed tokenization is a first-of-its-kind move by a top-50 U.S. county, and one that serves as a model for other jurisdictions nationwide.

About Balcony
Balcony is redefining land record management for the digital age through blockchain-backed infrastructure purpose-built for government. By transforming fragmented, legacy property data into unified, tamper-proof digital registries, Balcony empowers the public sector to tokenize deeds, streamline ownership transfers, and unify real estate records — delivering cleaner, more accessible data that drives better decisions and public transparency. Balcony's platform seamlessly integrates structured and unstructured records from multiple sources — leveraging AI to organize, analyze, and make sense of complex data at scale. The result is faster processing, fraud reduction, and dramatically improved access to accurate, actionable property information. As the engine behind some of the nation's most ambitious public sector tokenization initiatives, Balcony is shaping the next era of trusted, intelligent, and transparent government recordkeeping.

About Avalanche
Avalanche is an ultra-fast, low-latency blockchain platform designed for builders who need high performance at scale. The network's architecture allows for the creation of sovereign, efficient and fully interoperable public and private layer 1 (L1) blockchains which leverage the Avalanche Consensus Mechanism to achieve high throughput and near-instant transaction finality. The ease and speed of launching an L1, and the breadth of architectural customization choices, make Avalanche the perfect environment for a composable multi-chain future.

Supported by a global community of developers and validators, Avalanche offers a fast, low-cost environment for building decentralized applications (dApps). With its combination of speed, flexibility, and scalability, Avalanche is the platform of choice for innovators pushing the boundaries of blockchain technology.

Government agencies interested in modernizing property records with Balcony are encouraged to contact [email protected] to explore collaboration opportunities.

SOURCE Balcony