Here in the Gulf, tokenization is not a crypto story anymore. It's becoming a capital markets story. Sovereign debt, real estate, even government registries are going on chain. Joining me here is Adam Popat, CEO of SettleMint. Adam, welcome to Wall Street to Mena. Thank you for joining us today.
You keep saying tokenization is not a crypto story, it's a capital markets story. So what is the difference?
Thank you, Raghda, first of all, for having me. If you think about the first wave of digital assets, it was really about the creation of cryptocurrencies — Bitcoin, Ether, as you mentioned earlier in the program. What we're at now is a very different stage of development. We're taking the entire global capital markets and putting them on chain. And that's a very different place to where we were three or four years ago.
Even before the show you were telling me — tokenization now goes beyond real estate. What are we seeing now in the UAE and Saudi Arabia? Is it going to go beyond real estate?
Absolutely. We're going to be tokenizing all kinds of different assets, both in the financial world and in real world assets. At SettleMint we're already seeing progress on very different use cases emerging in the region — tokenized equities, tokenized real estate, tokenized gold. Ultimately, everything is going to be tokenized.
Everything is going to be digitalized. SettleMint is working with banks and also with the ADI Foundation here in the UAE. What have those kinds of partnerships actually built?
For both of those examples, we're working with the Saudi government on the real estate registry in Riyadh, and also with the ADI Foundation in Abu Dhabi. We're building regulated digital asset infrastructure so that those institutions, and others they work with, can issue and manage the full lifecycle of those assets on chain in a compliant and regulated way.
In Saudi Arabia, you tokenized the real estate registry itself. Walk us through that process.
We work with them as our clients. We provide them with our technology and platform, and they use it to take the entire registry and put it on chain through our platform. We make that process straightforward for them. We also build marketplaces where the tokenized real estate properties can be traded on the secondary market — our platform connects with proptech marketplaces where properties can be listed, tokenized, and traded.
You've also said that a sovereign program doesn't need a token minting tool, it needs real infrastructure. What's the difference?
From a technological and market infrastructure perspective, tokenization is only about 5% of the challenge. What we really need to build is a fully integrated end-to-end marketplace and infrastructure. Many people can tokenize — not many can do it well — but the real work is building something that can connect with banks and registries and operate within the environments of the clients themselves.
I want to ask you something I've been hearing more about. You can tokenize everything, sure — but should you tokenize everything?
Tokenization solves a number of different things. For very illiquid assets, creating liquidity through tokenization is a very good thing — it leads to better outcomes for everyone. And for already liquid assets such as sovereign debt, ETFs, or similar instruments, tokenization creates additional efficiencies that can ultimately be passed on to end users. So in the end, there is value in doing it for all assets.
So issuing a token is the easy part. What actually makes an asset investable after that?
You need liquidity — there's no point in tokenizing something and putting it on chain if you can't trade it. You need legal enforceability — when you own the token, you have to trust that you truly own the right to that underlying asset. And you have to be able to manage the full lifecycle of that asset. If it's a bond, for example, redemptions, yield payments — all of that has to happen on chain. Otherwise it's just a very isolated experiment.
ETFs, sovereign debt, real estate — all to be tokenized. Which one moves first toward full tokenization in the Gulf right now?
You might expect me to say real estate given our work there, but actually I think it's going to be sovereign debt and ETFs first. If you look at the tokenized US treasuries market, it's gone from about 100 million to 17 billion dollars in just two years. The blueprint already exists, these are already very liquid assets with very sophisticated issuers, and it's comparatively easier to do. But the big prize is real estate, because it is the largest asset class in most countries. Once we're able to fully tokenize that, it's going to unlock a tremendous amount of economic growth.
And beyond real estate — are we moving toward tokenizing even more asset classes in this region?
Absolutely. Our work with the ADI Foundation is focused on tokenized equities. We're also moving toward tokenized bonds. And there are already use cases in the Dubai market around gold and diamonds. We're going to see a lot more of this.
Five years from now — maybe less, because things move faster here — will tokenization just be something invisible, baked into how capital markets work?
If we've succeeded, then yes, it should be. It's exciting to talk about now because it's a new technology and a new way of doing things. But in the end it should just fade into the background. End users — whether individuals, sovereign investors, or corporates — don't really care how it works as long as they can move assets from A to B, trust that movement, and trust the ownership at either end. Just like when you pay for something at a restaurant or in a taxi — you don't think about how the payment is actually processed in the background. You just want to know it happened. That's what tokenization should become in the end.
And what about regulation here in the UAE — is it keeping pace with where tokenization is heading?
Absolutely. This region is leading the way in terms of regulatory frameworks being put in place — here in the UAE, and also in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The more regulatory clarity there is, the easier it becomes to build and invest in these new markets.
So the GCC is moving fast on this.
I would say they're not just following — they're leading the way.
I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being here with us.
Thank you very much.
