Rigor (🧱,🧱) 🦇 🔊

Rigor no longer operates

[Rigor (🧱,🧱) 🦇 🔊 @Rigor_HQ]

Dear Rigor Community:

It's with a heavy heart that I write to you to let you know I’m shutting down the Rigor project. We'll be distributing back remaining investment funds to investors, to whom we are deeply grateful: Agya Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Flow Ventures, Fortified Ventures, and Third Prime. We're equally grateful to our angel investors and the broader community. We want you to know that we expended every effort to build Rigor's success and to create lasting value and utility.

Please permit a short obituary.

We were super passionate about this opportunity and felt strongly that we were addressing big, systemic and important problems that would also create an awesome business. For starters, inside and outside of construction, payment dynamics between businesses is bananas. Vendors complete work and then wait forever to get paid. This causes real pain — financial and emotional — up and down supply chains. It forces prices higher. So much needless energy and expense is devoted to chasing money that’s fairly owed. For small businesses, especially, the AP/AR mismatch is torture. Some die. We heard it from our customers.

Meanwhile, why isn't it easier to invest in the construction of homes? Why do only special people get to do that? After all, there aren't enough homes for people and the financial returns are great! Why not a simple marketplace where investors can get strong returns in a short time frame by building a house for someone… during a housing crisis? Why not decentralized finance to rectify a historical imbalance?

Our hunch was that pairing these capabilities would create a superhero: an easy to buy, high yield, short term financial product financing vital infrastructure with pristine accounting. One powered by transparent payment delivery in lockstep with work. Lenders get unprecedented control over their underwriting criteria; small businesses get paid as they bear expenses, not months later (or never). Finally, decentralize ownership of the whole thing, offering it up to the world as low-cost, open source community-owned financial infrastructure. Make a mint for ourselves and investors. “The electric grid for construction finance.” Let’s build more homes!

Admittedly, the macro did make things challenging over the past two years. We sought to build a crypto protocol for housing while each of these markets experienced dramatic volatility. Yeesh. Crypto markets cratered spectacularly, drying up potential liquidity for construction projects that we'd anticipated. It also saw critical technical and financial partners of Rigor go out of business — suddenly and suspiciously. A hostile legal landscape made tokenization far too risky for the team and our investors. Meanwhile, in housing, a shocking and historic rise in interest rates added uncertainty for investors regarding the future sales prices of the homes we were fundraising to build. Some of this may have been headlines for you; these were our day-to-day realities.

Undeterred, we persevered through these conditions and fought on! It is our nature. Observing a deteriorating market for tokens, we decided to postpone our token plans and reign in big related expenses quickly. Our goal was to save up through the “winter” to enable us to revisit those plans when markets were more favorable to such strategies.

When that happened, we knew we wanted to meet that opportunity with unambiguous evidence that the protocol did what we said it did. Show not tell. So, we built more than a dozen real homes for real people using crypto networks and cryptocurrency — bleeding edge stuff and, to our knowledge, a world first. Really. In an effort to catalyze investor interest and create momentum, Isaac funded many of those homes himself. We developed a thoughtful narrative and achieved a respectable following, on X, in crypto trades and national press. We went on to experiment with an all-equity investment product that enabled participation in the profits from a home sale, which increased returns for investors versus prevailing lending rates. "Find your capital a home." Homes sold at great returns. All the while, contractors were paid more fairly.

Looking back, our original sin was to diverge from tokenization and the economy we imagined would govern the protocol and expand its utility. We failed to gather and inspire a decentralized community. We gave up on memetic devices. We didn’t pivot to digitally native use cases for Rigor quickly enough when it was becoming clear that the real world infrastructure we thought we’d have to bridge blockchain-native finance with real world payments crumbled around us. In our quest to create proof points of the protocol’s utility for later use, we found ourselves building a centralized financial services business whose product could only be bought by accredited investors, which skyrocketed customer acquisition costs. The result: we weren’t crypto enough for crypto investors and audiences; while being too crypto and blockchain for mainstream investors. Pincered.

I must honor our team: Isaac Lidsky, visionary, polymath and able leader. Julia Wasserman, thoughtful partner, loving sister, moral compass, utterly brilliant operator. Elliott Conway, superstar product leader. "Dan13," pseudonymous and talented lead developer. Rob Leonhard, redoubtable lawyer and vigilant protector of the realm. Joe Tennant, controller and analytics extraordinaire.

Thank you, team; great effort!

Thank you again for your support. We're grateful for it.

Sincerely,
Erich

Erich Wasserman
Founder & CEO

[julia wasserman thapar @juliawasserman]

Regulation of social media is long overdue.

Brilliant @edwardwasserman
Do governmental attempts to rein in social media violate the Constitution? We’re about to find out https://t.co/xCuNm3QuTb via @sfchronicle

[Rigor (🧱,🧱) 🦇 🔊 @Rigor_HQ]

♥️

[angelo @angelo_a_jr]

Such an incredible at-bat by the Rigor team solving some real structural issues that would help mature the DeFi industry.

There will be another opportunity for this in the future.

Hats off to everyone on the team; this initiative will not be forgotten.

[julia wasserman thapar @juliawasserman]

@mcuban Conveniently, you're describing @Rigor_HQ! We've been building single-family homes in Florida on the blockchain for two years!

[Erich Wasserman @erichwasserman]

@mcuban @Jason @mcuban we gotchoo. @Jason we built this @rigor_hq, been live for 2 yrs on @0xPolygon. Lenders escrow construction costs, Rigor delivers construction payments P2P from lender directly to contractors as proof of work (via multisig) is provided. Let's build some homes!

[Mark Cuban @mcuban]

So you are saying you will have written a smart contract on a ZK L2 which will check for a construction permit being issued , which in turn will create and send me an NFT that unlocks and delivers 250k in USDC when the oracle checks property and utility records and determines that house has been completed ? The smart contract will continuously check for construction permits and create a new NFT for each incremental unit to be built ? Correct ?

We will use a multi sig wallet so that we both are protected.

Deal ?

[Rigor (🧱,🧱) 🦇 🔊 @Rigor_HQ]

@chainlink Carfax for cars; Homefax for homes

[Erich Wasserman @erichwasserman]

We'd love to hear from you! With ~$5m in tokenized construction loans through Rigor to date, we're eager to understand other use cases where trust in project finance is lacking, e.g.:

*Ukrainians aiming to show international donors how financial aid won't be eaten by corruption before it has a chance to rebuild their country
*Grant-making institutions controlling P2P where and to whom grant $ are delivered, ensuring it is in line with what's proposed
*VC investors conditioning their investments on their portfolio companies’ having achieved promised roadmap milestones, reducing investment risk
*SMBs who hire “gig economy” contractors or consultants mitigate project risk by aligning work progress with payment, reducing project risk while minimizing contractors’ need to finance receivables
*On-chain kending protocols conditioning capital delivery with alignment to underwriting criteria, limiting lending risk

Others as well. Please be in touch if you have a POV -- we'd love to hear from you!

[Rigor (🧱,🧱) 🦇 🔊 @Rigor_HQ]

💰Financial Controllers
- Do you sometimes doubt that your 💸 is used to finance the right projects, with agreed upon resources?
- Do you pass on investment opportunities because you lack controls to trust new partners?
- Are you looking for ways to deploy 💸 more confidently?

[Rigor (🧱,🧱) 🦇 🔊 @Rigor_HQ]

Want to earn $50? Rigor is known for 🏡 🏗️. Now, we're expanding our horizons and we want to learn from you! Check out the 🧵👇. If it resonates, we’re eager to chat. If it doesn’t, we’re even more eager to chat - either way, you get $50 😉

📩 DM or comment to connect!

[Rigor (🧱,🧱) 🦇 🔊 @Rigor_HQ]

📝 Clients/Project Managers

- Ever employed consultants on an hourly basis and been stunned at an unexpectedly large invoice?
- Do you work with consultants who bill aggregate values for unaccountable amounts of senior and junior hrs?
- Are projects delayed over 💰 disputes?

[Home Construction Collective @hccollective_HQ]

Did you know? Collective's first projects are designed to address the shortage of entry-level homes, providing opportunities for individuals and families to achieve their dream of homeownership. Join the Collective and chat with our team in Discord - https://t.co/F2VRiV3Dop

#HousingCrisis #RWA #RealEstate #Blockchain

[Miami Herald @MiamiHerald]

Banks are leaving millennials who want to buy homes out in the cold | Opinion https://t.co/uLzhL7DK5c

[Home Construction Collective @hccollective_HQ]

We’re exploring questions from @cointelegraph’s The Agenda podcast. Check out our latest Blog on construction finance and how Collective changes the landscape from regional banks and private lenders to one that prioritizes decentralization and community! https://t.co/DLXGjfrQGj

[Rigor (🧱,🧱) 🦇 🔊 @Rigor_HQ]

👇

[Home Construction Collective @hccollective_HQ]

👀Check out our new blog post 👇

“New home construction” can evoke 🙄🤬 😤because, let’s be honest, very few of us have had great experiences with construction projects. “Late” and “over budget” are a few of the key terms.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. When it comes to building new homes efficiently and at scale, there's a smart choice that can lead to impressive returns: pre-designed model homes. Check out our latest blog post to learn about the expertly-crafted homes we build when you invest in homes on Collective!

https://t.co/X2rZnDaLaj

[julia wasserman thapar @juliawasserman]

🔥👇💯🔥

[Home Construction Collective @hccollective_HQ]

🏠 The #HousingCrisis is a generational heist and #millennials are the most impacted. On news that #Miami is officially the least affordable housing market in the US, our Miami-born COO @juliawasserman reveals how banks have pushed millennials aside in a new @miamiherald oped 🧵

[Rigor (🧱,🧱) 🦇 🔊 @Rigor_HQ]

Rigor is proud to partner with businesses that care deeply about transparency. Commence Logistics is the first general contractor to build IRL homes on the blockchain! Learn more about Commence in the latest blog post from @hccollective_HQ

[Home Construction Collective @hccollective_HQ]

1/7🧵 At launch, Collective's first Project Sponsor features partnership with a world-class building supply chain in Central Florida! In Part 2 of our latest post, you’ll get a glimpse into how these businesses came to be...

Check it out!: https://t.co/ArjxaLWOTN

tl;dr in 🧵👇

[Rigor (🧱,🧱) 🦇 🔊 @Rigor_HQ]

👀👇Get to know the building supply chain behind our homes! All building funds for @hccollective_HQ homes flow through Rigor's payment trust layer!

We've built a robust system to make investing in new home construction easy for investors while offering modern, transparent capital coordination that aligns payment with work completed, eliminating epic 80-day average payment delays to contractors and vendors so that projects don’t face payment-related delays. 💪

[Home Construction Collective @hccollective_HQ]

👀Check out Part 1 of our 2-part blog series getting to know more about the world-class building supply chain behind the homes built on Collective!

Help your capital find a home today!
https://t.co/0waCshziyI

tl;dr 👇
Commence Logistics and ODC Construction contribute to the construction of 50,000+ homes, generating $2 billion in revenue over 12 years. They're now building at a pace of 8,000-10,000 homes per year for large production home builders and and smaller developers alike. 🏗️ #BuildingPartners

Homes built on Collective benefit from our tight-knit relationships with ODC Construction and Commence Logistics in two critical ways.

1️⃣We hire Commence Logistics as the general contractor and use ODC Construction to build the architectural shell of each home. We ensure top-notch quality in every step. 👷‍♂️

2️⃣We gain access to proprietary data on thousands of homes annually. We know what to build, where, and why. We combine Commence Logistics' cost data with public sales data to identify the most in-demand homes in each county and analyze that data to forecast potential returns on investment.

Whether you're an investor, builder, or future homeowner, Home Construction Collective offers a groundbreaking opportunity to reshape the housing market. Start your journey with us today and be part of the solution to the housing crisis. Together, we can make a lasting impact! 🏠❤️ #ReshapeHousing