In an announcement on Friday, Dubai Land Department (DLD) and tokenization company Ctrl Alt announced a secondary market for real estate-backed tokens, allowing the resale of $5 million in fractional real estate ownership.
Approximately 7.8 million tokens associated with 10 properties in Dubai are now available for trading within a controlled market environment. Transactions take place on regulated distribution platforms; $XRP It is a ledger blockchain and is secured by Ripple Custody.
The initiative is part of Dubai’s ambitious plans to transform real estate ownership into tradable tokens on blockchain rails and become a global hub for real estate tokenization. Proponents argue that blockchain rails can streamline ownership recording and settlement. However, uneven regulation remains a bottleneck, and weak secondary trading could limit liquidity, the EY report said.
Although the tokenized real estate market is still only a small part of the global real estate market, it is predicted to grow rapidly over the next decade. Deloitte said in a report last year that $4 trillion of real estate will be tokenized by 2035, growing by 27% annually.
Dubai’s $16 billion roadmap
Last year, DLD, a government agency for the real estate industry, set out a roadmap to tokenize 7% of Dubai’s real estate market (approximately $16 billion) by 2033. The first milestone in that plan was the launch of a platform developed with Prypco and Ctrl Alt to tokenize real estate deeds. $XRP Ledger ($XRP) chain.
Secondary market transactions using the token are part of the second phase of the pilot, which aims to test market infrastructure, investor protection, and compatibility with existing property laws. The project’s infrastructure partner, Ctrl Alt, integrates directly with the DLD system to issue and manage title tokens on-chain.
Tokens are also paired with Asset Reference Virtual Assets (ARVA), a second layer that regulates who can trade tokens and on what terms. This setup ensures that all transactions are compliant and accurately reflected in Dubai’s official real estate registry.
Read more: Real estate billionaire Barry Sternlicht is ready to tokenize his assets, but says US regulations are preventing it
