More than 3,000 investors have registered for Dubai’s flagship real estate tokenization program. Mahmoud AlBurai, a senior executive at the Dubai Land Department (DLD), disclosed this in a post on LinkedIn.
According to AlBurai, the massive number of participants who have joined the waitlist highlights their interest in the project. The real estate tokenization project is the first in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
With the pilot launched on March 16, the DLD partnered with Prypco Mint and Ctrl Alt to tokenize ownership deeds of real estate properties owned by the government. The department now plans to offer fractional ownership of these properties to investors.
Presently, only holders of an Emirates Card, i.e., official residents of the United Arab Emirates, can participate in the program. Despite the eligibility limit, many investors have shown interest in the project.
This is likely because several regulators are playing key roles in the actualization of the project. Beyond the DLD, the Dubai Future Foundation, Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), and the Central Bank of UAE are also involved, giving potential investors confidence in the project.
While the project remains in the early stages, DLD already has big projections. In its earlier announcement, it predicted that it could become a $16 billion market by 2033, noting the effectiveness, transparency, and accessibility that blockchain could enable for the real estate market.
Dubai picks XRPL to tokenize real estate assets
Interestingly, Dubai chose Ripple’s XRP Ledger as the blockchain for tokenizing the deeds. According to AlBurai, XRPL is the pilot phase network. This has led to speculations as to whether XRPL would be the only choice or if it plans to expand to other networks.
For now, the choice of XRPL represents a momentous milestone for the blockchain network. While it has seen minimal activity compared to other major smart contract networks, its use for the project represents an opportunity to show its ability for tokenization.
Ripple has been actively pushing for tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) on XRPL. Last year, it invested $5 million into a tokenized money market fund on XRPL by UK-based firm Abrdn while investing $10 million into tokenized US treasury bills by OpenEden after the platform launched on XRPL.
With real estate tokenization entering the mix, XRPL looks poised for more institutional adoption. Ripple recently secured a payments provider license from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) and has started onboarding institutions into its payments service, which is enabled through XRPL.
UAE could emerge as a leader in real estate tokenization
Meanwhile, the DLD Tokenization Project, while still in the pilot phase, could allow the UAE to become a pioneer in the real estate tokenization sector. While tokenization of RWA has become one of the most exciting sectors globally, most financial institutions and regulators are currently focused on tokenization of financial products such as securities and bonds.
This means that the real estate sector has seen limited tokenization efforts, allowing Dubai to dominate with its Real Estate Tokenization Sandbox. So far, the UAE has seen about $3 billion worth of real estate assets tokenized, according to local reports.
Interestingly, regulatory involvement in the Dubai real estate tokenization efforts could also prove to be an advantage after a recent lawsuit by the US Securities and Exchange Commission against real estate tokenization company Unicoin executives.
The SEC alleged in the lawsuit that Unicoin, which claimed to own several tokenized estate properties, did not own any of the assets and inflated their value. It added that the firm also misled investors about returns and exaggerated sales.
With the lawsuit likely to shake investors’ confidence in the tokenized real estate sector, a government-backed project with regulatory support from several agencies could be an alternative to private projects.
