Tiny Toronto: Deploying Blockchain for Canada’s Housing Sustainability

In March 2025, the Canadian social enterprise Tiny Toronto became the first to use technology to tackle the housing-affordability crisis for the missing middle, practically experimenting with two strategic technology projects—blockchain technology, which offered a method for transparently tracing products in the lumber supply chain, and dowel-laminated timber, an environmentally-friendly building component—in the creation of sustainable tiny homes. Against the backdrop of a growing trade dispute between the United States and Canada, with US tariff rates on Canadian softwood lumber at 14.54 per cent and potentially rising, as well as concerns about greenwashing and the need to verify sustainability in the housing market, Tiny Toronto’s founder had to decide whether the company should develop its own blockchain application or acquire an existing application.