UAE based property developer EMAAR plans to pilot tokenization of its real estate assets. The news was revealed by an outgoing executive of Swisscom Blockchain, which is working with EMAAR on the project.
EMAAR’s assets include the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, which the executive claims is one of the assets to be tokenized. It also owns the Dubai Mall. In a recent announcement, EMAAR stated it sold over 30,500 residential units in the last ten years for $24 billion.
We contacted EMAAR for comment but didn’t receive a response by publication time. We initially reported that the tokenization would use Hedera Hashgraph. But after publication an Emaar spokesperson asked us to correct it to IBM’s DLT, which is the enterprise blockchain Hyperledger Fabric.
The real estate company already has a blockchain rewards app. The EMR platform was launched at the end of last year, where the tokens can be redeemed at its properties, hotels, e-commerce operations and malls. At the time of launch, the property firm was keen to emphasize that the loyalty tokens were tradable.
Real estate tokenization is a popular application. Nine months ago, tokenization firm Liquefy said it had partnered with a consortium of Gulf families and planned to tokenize a Mayfair hotel. No further details have been revealed, but Liquefy helped Hong Kong property firm Stan Group to use tokenization in its “Buy-a-Brick” solution to reward staff.
A large amount of real estate activity is in Asia. In Japan, Lead Real Estate plans to tokenize Tokyo real estate projects on a platform built by Securitize. And Tokai Tokyo and iStox invested in Hash Dash Holdings. Other examples include initiatives in Brazil, Korea and Germany.
Update: The original report stated that Emaar’s real estate tokenization would use Hedera Hashgraph. Emaar asked us to change this to IBM’s DLT (Hyperledger Fabric).
