GM. It’s TRB Issue 17. Tokenized real estate news explained in simple terms, so anyone can understand and explore how digital property ownership works and why it matters.
In this week’s ReFi Brief:
BIS study maps where tokenization fills real estate gaps
Primior’s GAIA Platform Opens U.S. Real Estate to Global Investor
Brickken Taps XDC Network to Scale Tokenization for Institutions
Chainbull Upgrade Targets Cross-Border Tokenized Property Scale
Taken together, the week shows tokenisation behaving like a parallel distribution system for real estate. One part identifies the gaps; the others build the pipes for cross-border access, institutional compliance, and smaller tickets.
THE BIG READ
What happens to property markets when tokens show up in places where banks barely operate?
That is the question a new BIS working paper released this week raises.
Source: BIS X
I believe it is the strongest dataset yet on where tokenisation grows, how it behaves under stress, and what sits underneath the liquidity claims.
Giulio Cornelli analysed several years of US tokenisation data across multiple platforms and found an interesting pattern that does not match the marketing pitch.
Tokens are not forming in the strongest real estate markets. They show up where credit is thin and where households have limited formal paths into ownership.
The report finds that for every one-standard-deviation rise in bank branch density, tokenised listings fall by about forty percent.
That flips a common story. Instead of chasing prime markets, tokenisation grows in regions with lower valuations and sparse lender presence.
Another interesting finding hits the liquidity question.
Tokenised transactions surge during natural disasters. BIS event-study results show trading volume rises roughly 35 percent in the two days after a disaster.
That is the period when traditional property markets freeze. The scale surprised even the researchers, because physical housing markets normally stall during shocks.
The driver is not organic demand. It comes from platform features such as buybacks, where platforms promise to redeem tokens at appraisal-linked prices.
Those features create a fast exit path for users and a balance-sheet risk for the platform if too many redemptions hit at once.
Do the BIS findings fit global patterns?
I would say tokenisation is not a magic shortcut to development. It does not replace the traditional system (yet), it fills gaps.
I think of regions like Africa and Southeast Asia, which share versions of patterns in the report. It is the ability to put 50 or 100 dollars into property markets and still have a way out.
For asset originators, it is the option to raise against assets that local banks will not touch.
The report shows that tokenisation reaches the places traditional real estate does not.
It has a real function in places traditional real estate struggles to serve.
You gain reach, liquidity and lower entry points, and the platform carries the weight of making those features real.
I think success depends on whether platforms can prove they are as durable as the assets they fractionalise and as volumes scale.
TM
THE WEEK IN BRIEF
Image Source: Primior
The Brief: On December 1, Primior launches GAIA, a marketplace that tokenizes institutional-grade U.S. properties. Global investors can buy stakes from $100, with about $52 million already digitized across apartments, commercial buildings, and hotels.
The Details:
Access and pipeline. GAIA lets investors outside the U.S. buy fractional interests in rental housing, commercial assets, and hotels starting at $100. Over 300 asset owners and fund managers are exploring listings, which signals a growing supply side.
Liquidity design. The platform introduces an OTC-style board for peer-to-peer token sales and plans a regulated secondary exchange. This creates a pathway for earlier exits in private real estate, subject to approvals.
Institutional framing. GAIA’s first product, the United States Property fund ($USP), holds more than $50 million in tokenized assets. Primior is even pursuing a “PTKN” stock ticker, positioning tokenization as the company’s core strategy.
What This Means: For retail and cross-border investors, the main shift is lower entry and fewer procedural hurdles into U.S. institutional-grade real estate. A $100 minimum and planned trading rails address capital barriers and illiquidity that kept many out of private deals.
For asset originators, GAIA offers a distribution channel that combines global reach with embedded compliance and reporting, which can shorten raises and simplify ongoing administration. If volumes build as signaled, this looks like a step from isolated token pilots toward a standing marketplace where institutional assets are structured for smaller, more mobile tickets.
Image Source: Brickken
The Brief: Brickken has connected its tokenization stack to the XDC Network, an EVM-compatible chain with fast finality and low fees. Institutions can now issue and manage tokenized securities, including real estate shares, on infrastructure designed for regulated, high-volume use.
The Details:
Enterprise rails. XDC offers roughly two-second transaction finality and very low gas costs for EVM-based contracts. For banks, asset managers, and corporates, that supports higher transaction volumes and cheaper on-chain operations when managing tokenized funds or property vehicles.
Compliance and lifecycle tooling. Brickken’s platform layers KYC and AML checks, governance, and asset lifecycle management over XDC. This gives institutions a ready-made operating environment for tokens instead of building their own blockchain infrastructure.
Standards and track record. Brickken reports more than $300 million in tokenized assets across 16 countries and has helped draft the ERC-7943 standard for institutional tokens. Its role in the EU digital asset sandbox signals a focus on regulatory alignment rather than experimentation
What This Means: For institutional allocators, this is about lowering friction to bring real estate and other real-world assets on-chain at portfolio scale. High-speed settlement, low fees, and prebuilt compliance tools reduce operational cost and legal risk, which are major blockers for large ticket sizes.
For asset originators working with these institutions, a standards-based stack on XDC can make it easier to plug property funds or debt structures into existing capital markets workflows. The partnership points to a market where tokenization is treated as infrastructure for regulated finance, not a side project.
Image Source: Chainbull
The Brief: Chainbull has upgraded its real estate tokenization platform to handle larger, cross-border deals with stronger compliance tooling. The November 27 release moves the system toward enterprise-scale issuance, multi-country onboarding, and more rigorous monitoring for institutional users.
The Details:
Higher capacity and stability. The upgrade increases throughput so Chainbull can support larger commercial and mixed-use projects with many investors transacting at the same time. This helps move tokenization from small pilots to deals closer to traditional real estate fund sizes.
Embedded controls. New audit trails, real-time monitoring, and security controls push more of the compliance workload into the platform itself. For institutions and regulators, that improves traceability of who owns what and how funds move.
Cross-border focus. Chainbull is targeting hubs in the Gulf and Asia and signals plans to interface with regional settlement networks, including XRP-based rails. The roadmap includes secondary trading capabilities, which would matter for cross-border exits
What This Means: For asset originators and sponsors, the upgrade addresses two recurring blockers: limited technical capacity and fragmented compliance across regions. A platform that can handle heavier deal volumes and encode more of the rules in software can shorten raises and reduce back-office burden when selling to international investors.
For allocators buying into these structures, stronger monitoring and clearer records of ownership make tokenized property feel closer to the controls they expect in traditional private markets. If Chainbull executes on secondary trading, that adds a further lever against illiquidity in cross-border real estate tokens.
BRIEF X SIGNALS
🔗 @BIS_org Does real estate tokenization fill gaps in traditional markets? New research shows it enhances access and liquidity during shocks, but only when platforms offer buyback features, which come at the cost of higher insolvency risk.
🔗 @Brickken Brickken featured in Deutsche Bank Research Institute’s latest report on asset tokenization, listed among top tokenized real estate projects by market cap, noting early stages but potential as adoption driver in emerging markets with low property liquidity.
🔗 @cryptonews Philippines could build a $60 billion tokenized-asset market by 2030, led by equities and government bonds, with regulatory partnerships enabling distribution via digital wallets at minimums as low as P500.
🔗 @LandhiveRWA Most people think tokenized real estate lacks liquidity, but fractional ownership allows anytime secondary sales, real rental income, and cross-border diversification without full property commitment.
🔗 @EstateProtocol Real estate access has changed: start at $250 on Arbitrum, skip brokers and paperwork, earn up to 15% APY from rent in stables on tokenized co-living or Airbnb properties.
^
See you in the next brief,
Tatenda