- Ripple has partnered with Ctrl Alt to tokenize Dubai’s real estate on the XRP Ledger, marking the first time a government real estate authority in the Middle East has issued property deeds on a public blockchain.
- This move positions Ripple at the forefront of a growing $16 trillion tokenization market, enabling fractional ownership and expanding global access to real estate investment.
Ripple is pushing foward in the global real estate market with its groundbreaking partnership with Ctrl Alt, a UAE-based tokenization platform. With that already in place, the two companies are backing the Dubai Land Department’s (DLD) Real Estate Tokenization Project.
This bold move could redefine property ownership in one of the world’s most dynamic real estate hubs.
At the heart of the initiative is Ripple’s institutional-grade custody technology, which will securely store Dubai’s tokenized property title deeds on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). This marks the first time a government real estate registration authority in the Middle East has issued tokenized title deeds on a public blockchain.
In partnership with Ctrl Alt and the Dubai @Land_Department, Ripple Custody will deliver scalable and secure storage for the Dubai Land Department’s tokenized real estate title deeds, which have been issued on the XRP Ledger – enabling fractional ownership, transparency, and…
— Ripple (@Ripple) July 16, 2025
“This is a significant milestone,” said Reece Merrick, Ripple’s Managing Director for the Middle East and Africa. “That the DLD has chosen XRPL underscores its strength as the blockchain of choice for high-value, real-world financial use cases.”
For Ripple, this partnership signals an aggressive expansion of its global custody network, which now spans Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. Ctrl Alt becomes Ripple’s first major custody partner in the UAE and a key enabler of the project.
The platform recently secured a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) license from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), making it the first authorized issuer-related service provider in the region.
The regulatory green light enables a fully compliant tokenization pipeline, from asset issuance and on-chain settlement to custody and lifecycle management. The implications are far-reaching: tokenized real estate opens the door to fractional ownership, more transparent transactions, and broader access to global investors.
Ripple’s growing presence in the UAE aligns with Dubai’s broader ambitions to digitize its economy and attract global investment. Earlier this year, Ripple became the first blockchain-based payments company licensed by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA).
It has since partnered with institutions like Zand Bank and Mamo, and its stablecoin RLUSD is now approved for use within Dubai’s financial center.
Globally, the race to tokenize real-world assets is heating up. A recent report by the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA) and Boston Consulting Group projects that tokenized illiquid assets could reach $16 trillion in value by 2030. Even conservative forecasts from Citigroup estimate $4 trillion to $5 trillion in tokenized digital securities by the end of the decade.
In the U.S., Bergen County, New Jersey, recently inked a deal to tokenize 370,000 property deeds—valued at $240 billion, on the Avalanche blockchain. The move, backed by Blizzard (an Avalanche-focused VC), is the largest deed tokenization effort in American history.
With this bold move in Dubai, Ripple is positioning itself as a key player in the rapidly evolving tokenization landscape, one that could transform how real estate is bought, sold, and owned worldwide
