Property Tokenization Gains Traction
Tokenization and fractional property investing are emerging as a top 2026 trend in the UAE — platforms are pitching digital tokens to widen access and boost liquidity in a stressed market. If adopted at scale this could change how foreign capital flows into RAK and Dubai properties by lowering minimum tickets and enabling secondary trading. (solulab.com)
Dubai Land Department says its Real Estate Tokenization Project was launched under the Real Estate Evolution Space Initiative (REES) in coordination with the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, the Dubai Future Foundation and the Central Bank of the UAE. (dubailand.gov.ae) Phase II of that project — authorising regulated resale of tokenised property stakes — was activated on Feb. 20, 2026, according to the DLD announcement and government reporting. (gulfnews.com) The secondary‑market pilot admitted roughly USD 5 million of tokenised assets across ten Dubai properties and made about 7.8 million tokens tradeable on the XRP Ledger under institutional custody arrangements. (coindesk.com) Dubai’s system links on‑chain deed tokens with the official land registry and uses tokenisation infrastructure from vendors such as Ctrl Alt to manage the on‑chain lifecycle under regulator-approved arrangements. (metatrader.com) Ras Al Khaimah developer RAK Properties announced a partnership with ADGM‑regulated payments firm Hubpay on Sept. 1, 2025 to accept Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT for property purchases, with crypto converted and settled into dirhams. (rakproperties.ae) Dubai’s pilot set an initial minimum token purchase around AED 2,000 and the DLD has cited a potential market opportunity of about AED 60 billion in tokenised assets by 2033 for the emirate. (propertyfinder.ae) Industry analysis projects global tokenised real estate expanding from under USD 300 billion in 2024 to more than USD 4 trillion by 2035, a scale that explains the influx of custody, ledger and payments partners into UAE pilots. (forbes.com)
