The Dubai Land Department, in partnership with Ctrl Alt, has officially launched Phase Two of its Real Estate Tokenization Project, introducing regulated secondary-market trading for over 7.8 million tokenized property shares. All on-chain transactions continue to be executed on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) and are secured by Ripple Custody.
Phase Two: Regulated Secondary Trading
Reece Merrick, Ripple's Senior Executive Officer and Managing Director for the Middle East and Africa, announced on X on Feb. 20 that the pilot has expanded. The initial phase tokenized 10 properties representing more than $5 million in real estate value and issued approximately 7.8 million tokens, now eligible for resale in a controlled secondary market environment. “This is a massive step for real-world asset adoption in Dubai,” Merrick emphasized.
Trading takes place through a regulated distribution platform aligned with official land registry processes, enhancing transparency, governance, and investor protections. Ctrl Alt, a licensed Virtual Asset Service Provider and the first to receive an Issuer license from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), will issue Asset-Referenced Virtual Asset management tokens to facilitate compliant transfers and maintain a unified on-chain ownership record.
Custody and Legal Framework
Ctrl Alt confirmed on Feb. 20 that all on-chain transactions will continue to be executed on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) and secured by Ripple Custody. CEO Robert Farquhar described the initiative as a model for government-backed digital infrastructure, while CPO Matt Acheson noted that the framework enables dual operation of ownership and management tokens without distribution platforms needing to build their own tokenization engines.
As of February, Ctrl Alt reports tokenizing more than $850 million across real estate, private credit, funds, and commodities. Separately, Ripple-backed blockchain infrastructure has tokenized over $280 million in certified diamonds in the Gulf, further solidifying XRPL's role in real-world asset tokenization.
Industry Significance and Outlook
The launch of Phase Two represents a concrete step in integrating blockchain into official land registry systems. By tokenizing real estate and enabling secondary trading, investors gain liquidity within a compliant framework, while the Dubai Land Department benefits from increased transparency and efficiency. Ripple Custody's involvement provides enterprise-grade security, laying the groundwork for broader adoption.