On the other side of the world, a trap of "tokenized apartments" sold out in one day.

Original | Odaily Daily Report (@OdailyChina)

Author｜jk

! On the other side of the world, a "tokenized apartment" sold out in a day2025 May 26, Dubai Land Department, DLD) has partnered with real estate fintech company Prypco and blockchain infrastructure provider Ctrl Alt to officially launch "Prypco Mint", the first real estate tokenization platform in the Middle East, and successfully fully financed the first Real World Asset (RWA) apartment on the XRP Ledger chain in just one day. The platform is an important part of the UAE government's blockchain strategy, which aims to have approximately 7% of transactions in Dubai's real estate market on-chain by 2033. By then, total assets are expected to reach $16 billion.

Previously, most RWA real estate projects either remained at the level of independent projects without official endorsement, basically relying entirely on the credit of a single company. Due to factors such as the Web3 industry not having enough time to mature and users' obvious lack of trust in projects, there has been no so-called "well-known" RWA real estate project. This time, Dubai's operation may be able to fill this gap.

Why Dubai?

Another reason why many RWA projects have not gained traction is that their tokenized properties are not located in any real estate hotspots. In the global real estate industry, Dubai is undoubtedly a hotspot city; the booming real estate investment here attracts a large amount of foreign capital. When searching for "Dubai" on social media, you are likely to see the term "real estate" automatically suggested.

Why is Dubai famous? It's simple, the potential for appreciation and extremely high rental yield.

In recent years, Dubai's real estate market has continued to heat up. According to a CBRE report, residential prices** in Dubai will rise by an average of 18% in 2024, compared to 20% in the first quarter of 2025. **During the same period, the number of property transactions also hit a new high, reaching 45, 474 in the first quarter of 2025, up 22% year-over-year. This growth trend is due to the "Golden Visa" policy launched by the Dubai government, which is equivalent to five or ten years of long-term residence when buying a house, attracting a large number of high-net-worth individuals to invest in real estate. In addition, Dubai's geographical advantages, stable political environment and diversified economic structure also provide a solid foundation for the continued growth of the real estate market.

In terms of investment returns, the Dubai real estate market has performed exceptionally well. Data shows that Dubai's rent-to-sale ratio is approximately 1:132, with up to 90% of the foreign population allowing for rental yields of 8% to 9%, far exceeding the 2% to 3% seen in cities like Shanghai. This high rental yield enables investors to recoup their costs in a relatively short period, typically achieving a return on investment in 10 to 12 years. Furthermore, the UAE government exempts all personal income tax and capital gains tax, a policy that further enhances its investment appeal.

This is not an advertisement, but the real situation of the Middle Eastern real estate market over the past decade.

Of course, the Dubai market has experienced a significant increase over the past decade, leading to numerous claims this year that this might be the peak of the Dubai real estate market, citing various data such as high construction area and slowing population inflow. However, based on past data alone, property investment in Dubai has indeed been very active.

So what assets sold out in one day?

The business model of RWA real estate is very simple: tokenize the ownership of a property, where the token holders hold a portion of the property ownership, and the appreciation income and rental income generated by the property are distributed to all property rights holders according to their token ownership. In this way, even if holders do not have the ability to directly purchase the entire property, they can still include real estate in their investment portfolio, and the liquidity for exiting is significantly better.

Perhaps in order to create a scarcity marketing strategy, PrypcoMint only offered one apartment for tokenization on the first day of opening.

This completed financing real estate tokenization project is located in the core area of Dubai, Business Bay, and is a two-bedroom unit within the residential complex Prive by Damac, built by the renowned developer Damac. The built-up area is approximately 130.88 square meters, with a layout of two bedrooms and three bathrooms. The project features a full lake view and is equipped with hotel-style service facilities.

The first set of tokenized real estate situation, source: Prypco official website

Within a day, this property completed 100% financing at Prypco Mint, with a total price of 2.4 million dirhams (approximately 5.8 million yuan), issuing a total of 1,308,800 tokens, with 224 investors participating. Perhaps as a benefit for early investors, this price is significantly lower than the official market valuation: according to the Dubai Land Department's valuation, the market value of this unit is 2.89 million dirhams, and the actual purchase price on the platform is about 16.96% lower, providing investors with an unrealized profit space equivalent to 20.42%.

In terms of income, the unit's projected annual rental income is 175,000 dirhams, corresponding to a net rental yield of 5.17% in the first year. Considering the expected capital appreciation, the annualized total return of the apartment is estimated to reach as high as 14.77%. As of now, the realized net return is 5.31%, and the property has also entered the leasing process.

On the official website, it can be seen that the minimum entry threshold for investors can be as low as 2000 dirhams (approximately 4000 RMB), with an estimated value of about 3476.82 dirhams after 5 years, resulting in a total return of 73.84% over 5 years. It is important to note that this is an estimate provided by the official website and does not represent actual returns.

Five year income estimate, source: Prypco official website

In terms of trading fees, the platform itself does not charge any tokenized fees; investors only need to pay the official fees. However, this should only be a benefit for early investors and is unlikely to continue in the future. The full ownership of the unit has been completed on the XRP Ledger through the technical architecture of Ctrl Alt, and the ownership information is synchronized in real-time with the government database of the Dubai Land Department.

All kinds of reports are available on the official website. Source: Prypco official website

Can it be bought? Is it good for XRP?

Unfortunately, if you are not a resident of the UAE, you cannot purchase it, and the sale of this set has ended, but it does not mean it will not be open in the future.

From a compliance perspective, the tokenization project is currently only open to Emirates ID holders. This means that you need to work/study in Dubai and/or be already a Golden Visa holder because you are buying a house in the UAE to be eligible, while only accepting Dirham payments, which means you need a local bank account. The regulatory system is made up of the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) and the Dubai Future Foundation. The financial partner of the project is Zand Digital Bank.

Dubai Municipal Government Official News Release, Source: Dubai Municipal Government Official Website

Strictly speaking, this is not the RWA project of your dreams. An ideal RWA project should meet the following points:

1. Different investors can invest in a property, with ownership clearly defined by the amount of tokens;
2. Can be paid directly with on-chain assets;
3. Rely on token price to track housing price gains or declines;
4. Receive rental dividends periodically based on the amount of tokens held;
5. And can sell all or part at any time.

At present, PrypcoMint's attempt has only achieved points 1, 3, and 4 of "a set of properties clarifying ownership through tokens, realizing distribution and dividends for different investors", but payments must be made in fiat currency, and the exit mechanism is still unclear, which is very similar to holding properties through a company or trust and trading company shares or trust ownership on a securities exchange.

Even so, this is already a considerable step taken by RWA. This set of apartments is one of the first real estate projects to realize asset tokenization in the Dubai government plan, and it is part of the city's $16 billion tokenization strategy, which is based on the official estimate that by 2033, about 7% of the total value of real estate transactions in Dubai will be realized through tokenization.

Therefore, it is expected that the benefits of XRP in the short term will not be particularly significant, as it is merely the on-chain information of real estate ownership and tokenization, without opening up on-chain public sales. However, once it opens in the future, the gas demand generated by tokenized real estate worth $16 billion will undoubtedly be very high, and this may currently be a low point for value capture. But all of this depends on waiting for the continuous output of the RWA platform, which may truly create a new real estate boom in Dubai supported by 'more dispersed retail investors'.

P.S. Thinking about it from the other direction, this operation...Real estate information is all on the chain, the purchase price is real and transparent, and the public sale of assets on the chain and the sale of ownership tokens at any time may be opened in the future... Isn't this the vision proclaimed by decentralized finance back then, and the dimensionality reduction blow to financial intermediaries? Will this represent the complete decline of the real estate agency industry in Dubai in the future? Let's see.