This month, we caught up with Brian Christensen, founder of Blockcities, a Utah-based builder exploring the intersection of blockchain, real estate, and AI. Brian’s latest project is a real estate intelligence platform designed to help investment funds make data-driven decisions on where to build next—combining spatial data, AI, and blockchain infrastructure. In this conversation, he shares what he’s building, what he sees coming next for Utah’s blockchain ecosystem, and his candid take on recent federal legislation.
Q: How did you first get into blockchain and how did it lead to a full career shift?
Brian Christensen: I mean, it definitely wasn’t like an immediate thing. I’ve been building tech for a while, so before that it was very, like, data-focused and e-commerce, you know, getting to Amazon. But ever since Ethereum released smart contracts I’ve been into it and that really changed things in my eyes. It’s been interesting to watch the different waves that have come in, in terms of, like, what people are putting their time and energy into. It’s been really interesting to watch, for sure.
Q: Tell us about Blockcities and what you’re working on now.
Brian: Yeah, so right now I’m heads down in a real estate intelligence platform designed for REITs and investment funds to be able to gain better insights into their investments. So the premise of this very much originated with some of the infrastructure that I built with Blockcities, related to the virtual Earth system. And so the idea of being able to just query a particular address or a city and then just pull in as much insight as possible, and being able to quantify decisions that you’re making in terms of demand in a particular area, for example. Ultimately, that acts as a backbone for people being able to make decisions on where they’re allocating capital resources.
Q: What are some of the different applications you’re hoping to see come from it?
Brian: It would be really, really great to be able to get to a point where it’s so dialed in that it can inspire new developments because it’s identifying areas where—whether it’s because of the cost of energy or, you know, food demand is in short supply, everything—but identify opportunities and then be able to fill it. Right now, this is a data and intelligence play, but because of everything going on in AI, it kind of puts things in a unique position where you can stitch together a lot of these processes and different ways of analyzing and looking at things to be able to automate a lot of processes.
Q: What’s one thing you’re most proud of in this journey?
Brian: I mean, the time-to-market on this particular product has been super intense—head down building for a while—but in terms of actually taking it to market, it will definitely be one of the quicker products that we will end up launching. Beyond that, there’s a ton of insight in general that we’ll be able to derive from it, just because of the data that we’re pulling in. Then, you know, it’s an interface where you can either type or use the voice system to be able to query the application.
Q: Is most of your team based here in Utah?
Brian: They are right now, yeah. In the past, I’ve definitely used devs that are decentralized, but primarily overseas. But it’s nice to have some good devs here locally that I can meet in person.
Q: How do you feel about the local talent pool in Utah for blockchain?
Brian: I mean, there’s a ton of talent here in Utah. It’s very much in the earlier stages, to a certain extent, but there’s no doubt that you have a lot of talent in general. It’s just a matter of pulling everyone together and building more things.
Q: Why build in Utah? Do you think it can become a top crypto hub?
Brian: From regulatory perspective, you’ve got people that are drafting the right things and assisting with the legislation getting crafted, which enables all of this to happen at scale. I feel like the only benefit that certain markets have over Utah is, in terms of being a financial mecca—you know, we’re not Dubai or Miami by any means. That’s kind of the one thing that might make a builder or founder look elsewhere. But beyond that, I think the talent is absolutely here.
Q: What’s your perspective on the federal legislation that passed in July, like the GENIUS Act?
Brian: It’s not something that a lot of people will appreciate hearing, but from the start, central bank digital currencies have been the concern in that they can be used, you know, for ulterior motives—to be able to incentivize actions on a citizen’s behalf, very similar to the social credit score in China. The way that things were presented, even down to the verbiage use of, like, “anti-CBDC,” etc. If you dissect the bills, what you’ll find is that there was a very carefully crafted mechanism put in place that just simply added a second step onto the CBDC. But the original goal of being able to control digital currencies—and in the future restrict someone’s access to their account, etc.—was passed with the GENIUS Act. Most people don’t know that, but all it was is they created a second process. Because now, ultimately, the stablecoin issuers are the ones that are having to report to the government—and the government absolutely will have the ability to still control things like that.
I appreciate other pieces of legislation that just provide legal clarity around different things, because that will open up more of the floodgates for, you know, capital to flow. I appreciate the overall sentiment—Blockchain Week and encouraging the U.S. to become more of a crypto capital. So there’s a lot of good things that were passed, but when it comes down to it, the GENIUS Act missed the mark from that perspective in terms of actually providing any safety, security, or reassurance that the infrastructure will not lead to certain things down the road.
Q: Anything else you’d like to share about Blockcities or what you’re building?
Brian: So the real estate intelligence platform right now is actually under all AI. That’s the other company that ultimately is the development team behind that, which will end up licensing to and providing for Blockcities’ infrastructure. In terms of additional things, I’m excited to see where the space goes. There are some really, really cool projects taking place.
If I could say something to Utah legislation, it would be related to the concept of sandbox laws and being able to expand that out. The more we can embrace innovative approaches to create efficiencies—whatever they look like—the more interesting things we’ll see. With Freedom Cities in particular, they basically changed things at the constitutional level, which allowed for biotech and biomedical companies to do things they couldn’t do in the States and other places. From that same perspective, I feel like Utah can continue its trajectory if it adopts certain things that allow for playing in gray areas—like being able to build without the same permitting restrictions, exceptions to zoning, etc. There’s a lot of different things you could apply. I feel like we should be learning from other jurisdictions that are implementing these things successfully.
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