TL;DR
- Bergen County will move 370,000 real estate records to the Avalanche blockchain network.
- Balcony has been partnering with county officials to digitize deeds over a five-year period.
- The project targets a total of approximately $240 billion worth of real estate assets.
HACKENSACK, N.J. — A project to digitize property records using blockchain technology is underway in New Jersey’s most populous county.
Bergen County authorities are working with real estate technology company Balcony to transfer real estate deeds to a blockchain network. The system uses Avalanche, a blockchain platform, to store and manage records for more than 370,000 properties. The total value of real estate covered by this project is estimated at $240 billion.
Tokenization is inevitable, with Avalanche in New Jersey’s Bergen Country tokenizing over $200 billion in real estate
Made in pursuit of authenticity. pic.twitter.com/WZiYPmlTEs
— Avalanche🔺 (@avax) March 9, 2026
This initiative began in May 2025. This is part of a five-year agreement between Balcony and the Bergen County Clerk’s Office. The goal is to replace paper-based deed processing with a digital system that records ownership changes on the blockchain.
Tokenization is a process used in the project
Convert real estate ownership records into digital files and store them on a distributed ledger. This method creates a permanent record of each transaction.
Daniel Silverman, CEO and co-founder of Balcony. I said the company chose it. avalanche To build that network. The platform allows developers to customize the blockchain and set user permissions. These controls are necessary when working with government documents.
“We’re building L1 on Avalanche,” Silverman said. “They are a great partner for us and allow us to fully customize the blockchain.”
Silverman said Bergen County was the focus of the project because of its size and the opportunity to update its real estate system. The company signed a five-year contract with the county clerk’s office to handle deed processing on the blockchain.
Silverman described the initiative as the largest blockchain certificate program in the United States. He said the system is designed to maintain a permanent record of property ownership. It also aims to reduce deed fraud and provide clear information to property owners and the public.
Blockchain technology stores data in a way that makes it difficult to change past records without being detected. This feature is intended to maintain the integrity of real estate records over time.
The project puts Bergen County at the center of efforts to apply blockchain to government records management. Other public agencies in the U.S. have tested similar systems, but the program covers more properties and higher total amounts than previous trials.
The County Clerk’s Office will work with Balcony to administer the system. The company is building its own Layer 1 network on top of Avalanche for this project. Layer 1 refers to the basic architecture of the blockchain.
Concerns about real estate fraud in real estate transactions remain
Criminals may submit false deeds to claim ownership of property they do not own. Proponents of blockchain-based records argue that the technology creates a clear chain of ownership, making this type of fraud more difficult.
Bergen County residents and title companies will be using a new system when selling or transferring real estate. The county plans to maintain public access to records while verifying their authenticity using a blockchain backend.
With this project, New Jersey joins the list of states considering blockchain for government use. Colorado, California, and others have tested various record-keeping technologies.
