The Dubai Land Department (DLD), a government agency for the real estate industry, said it started a real estate tokenization pilot program, claiming to be the first property registration authority in the Middle East to use blockchain technology for property title deeds.

The initiative was developed with the digital assets watchdog Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) and Dubai Future Foundation (DFF). The project aligns with Dubai’s 2033 real estate strategy and broader efforts to strengthen its position as a global technology hub.

The department projected that tokenized real estate could account for 7% of the city’s total property transactions, reaching 60 billion dirhams ($16 billion) by 2033.

Dubai’s push into real estate tokenization reflects a growing trend of integrating blockchain into traditional markets, placing real-world assets (RWA) like bonds, funds and credit on crypto rails.

The digital token versions of RWAs can be fractionally owned and transferred on the blockchain, lowering the entry barriers for investors and increasing market liquidity. Unlike crowdfunding, which pools investor funds for property purchases, tokenization provides a more structured ownership model. However, a McKinsey tokenization report last year listed real estate as one of the classes that could face slower growth tokenization adoption due to operational hurdles.

Marwan Ahmed Bin Ghalita, director general of DLD, said the initiative would “simplify and enhance buying, selling and investment processes” in local real estate, and the department is engaging with technology firms to refine the project before scaling it up.