Hartford Business Journal

22 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | MAY 1, 2023 Home Sales Here's a list of recently sold luxury homes in Greater Hartford. Sale price Address Town Baths Beds Square footage Days on market $1,060,000 12 Chatsworth Place Farmington 4 5 5,387 2 $1,059,839 43 Oakridge Drive Avon 4 4 4,300 23 $1,050,000 1221 Flanders Road Southington 5 4 4,256 11 $1,000,000 61 Colton Road Glastonbury 4 5 6,220 4 $875,000 3 Sunny Reach Drive West Hartford 3 4 3,377 4 $873,800 0 Winchester Estates, Lot 28 Southington 4 7 3,337 0 $812,000 2 Brighton Lane Simsbury 4 5 5,215 3 $810,000 0 Winchester Estates, Lot 33 Southington 4 4 2,795 0 $725,000 120 Nicole Drive Glastonbury 4 3 3,369 24 $669,412 16 Griswold Place Simsbury 2 3 1,862 0 $640,000 871 Avery Street South Windsor 4 4 4,795 3 $632,000 41 Victory Lane Wethersfield 4 5 5,006 10 $630,000 25 Arlen Way West Hartford 4 3 4,141 3 $620,000 103 Clifton Avenue West Hartford 4 2 2,504 18 $566,000 304 Hartford Avenue Wethersfield 3 3 2,058 6 $565,000 26 Privilege Road Bloomfield 5 4 2,969 2 $559,900 21 Willow Creek Lane Southington 4 3 2,304 4 $555,000 481 Waterville Road Avon 4 5 4,634 4 $551,200 60 Sunrise Drive Manchester 4 3 2,520 2 $538,888 224 Indian Hill Trail Glastonbury 4 3 2,172 39 $515,000 43 Barber Hill Road East Windsor 3 2 2,263 4 $505,000 149 Clearfield Road Wethersfield 3 2 2,991 19 $495,000 16 Hatchet Hill Road East Granby 3 3 1,960 10 $485,000 91 Meadow View Drive Wethersfield 4 3 3,072 4 $475,000 300 Toll Gate Road Berlin 4 3 2,852 25 Credit: Data provided by Evan L. Berman of William Raveis Broder Team. Contact him at evan@brodergroup.com. campus in West Hartford, with the stated aim of developing a $283 million financial technology hub centered on blockchain technology — only to admit, after two years of delays, that the development effort was a bust. The company has since pivoted its focus to the commercial adoption of electric vehicles. Some less-than-stellar headlines have also accompanied Connecti- cut's more recent courtship of Digital Currency Group, which relocated its headquarters to Stamford from New York City in November 2021, prom- ising to create 300 jobs in the state. As of early this year, DCG announced it would shutter one of its Stamford-based subsidiaries, wealth management company HQ, and it has not yet met the employ- ment targets that would trigger state incentives. Gov. Ned Lamont last July announced that Darien-based Oasis Pro Markets, which operates an alternative trading system that allows subscribers to trade digital securities, would be adding 91 full-time jobs in the state as part of an expansion. The company will be eligible for a nearly $1.1 million grant, if it hits that hiring benchmark. The Department of Economic and Commu- nity Development declined to respond to questions about how blockchain might fit into the state's overall economic develop- ment strategy going forward. "There's been some pretty clear and present difficulties in the overall market," said David Noble, director of the Peter J. Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at UConn. "That's definitely had some negative impact on the pres- ence of blockchain in the state and the economic development issues around it." Complexity of transactions Noble is a Bitcoin enthusiast and early adopter. He's owned the currency since 2013, and first taught a course on it at UConn in 2016. He said the state should hang in there, undeterred by the current ups and downs of the market. "Cryptocurrency over time is going to win. It's a technological advance- ment," he said. "I always like to give the example of when I was younger, I never thought I would put a credit card on the internet or my phone, for instance. But I was really annoyed at the hotel yesterday because they didn't take Apple Pay." So, what might create the kind of landscape whereby this volatile industry could become a success in driving economic growth in Connecticut? "We want to build this ecosystem," said Deckman. "We want to build jobs, we want people to come to Connecticut to invest, and not be afraid of the regulatory environment." He has met with Banking Department officials, and said the industry wants regulation to promote confidence. "In Washington, there's so much gridlock in Congress that the issues are coming back to the states," said Deckman. "Connecticut has a unique opportunity to really be the model across the country for blockchain, if we do the regulation right." Noble is more of a regulation skeptic. "I don't think it's a really good idea for states to try to regulate a global platform," he said. "It's not really possible to regulate, and I think you've seen, regulation too early kills an industry." The growth of wealth behind cryptocurrency opportunities is demonstrably creating a new services economy, though. Justin Wilcox is a partner at CPA firm FML in Glastonbury, and he's become an expert on this rapidly developing practice area. "I realized that there's a lot of people that made a lot of money quickly and didn't have the knowledge to calcu- late the tax burden," he said. "So, that was an opportunity for us to build out a cryptocurrency tax practice." In fact, that field is so new that the Financial Accounting Standards Board only in March of this year issued a proposal on accounting for cryptocurrencies, in an effort to build the first explicit digital asset standard in U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. The rule is available for public comment until June, before it will be finalized. "The complexity of transactions is outpacing the law and will continue to do so," said Wilcox. David Noble Justin Wilcox

• Cover