Tokenisation: recording ownership of assets as digital tokens

What tokenisation means

A token, in this sense, is a digital record on a blockchain that represents a right in an asset. The right might be full ownership, a share of ownership or a claim on income. The token does not replace the asset or the law that governs it. It gives the right a form that can be recorded precisely, checked by anyone with permission to check it, and transferred without the paperwork that a traditional transfer would need.

Real-world asset tokenisation means doing this for assets that exist outside the blockchain: property, funds, receivables, commodities and, increasingly, digital property such as domain names. The value of the approach comes from three things: fractional ownership, faster and cheaper transfer, and a single, auditable record of who holds what.

A working example in Dubai

In May 2025 the Dubai Land Department launched the first tokenised real estate investment project in the region, through a platform called Prypco Mint. The pilot lets people buy shares in ready-to-own Dubai property from as little as AED 2,000, with transactions in UAE dirhams. The project is managed jointly by the Dubai Land Department as regulator of physical property and by the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority as regulator of the digital component, and tokenisation is permitted only through licensed firms.

The Department has projected that tokenised assets could account for up to 7 per cent of the Dubai property market by 2033, a value of about AED 60 billion, or US$16 billion. The projection is the Department's own and is not a forecast by this group. It does show how seriously the emirate treats the approach, and it is the context in which the Dubai and UAE guide describes the regulatory landscape.

Why domain names are a sensible first asset

Property tokenisation has to deal with land registries, mortgages and physical condition. Digital assets avoid much of that. A premium domain name has a single registration record, a clear history of use and measurable traffic, and an operating platform often sits on top of it. The group already owns a large portfolio, including the Visit Travel Group network and the brands licensed in the claims sector, so it can test the model on assets whose title and documentation it controls.

The building blocks

Every tokenisation programme needs the same five layers, and a weakness in any one of them undermines the rest.

• A legal wrapper that makes the token a defined right in a defined asset.
• An independent valuation and a documented chain of title.
• Token rules covering who may hold the token, transfer limits and the rights attached.
• Custody with controls on access, recovery and the underlying asset.
• Compliance, including identity checks, sanctions screening and reporting.

The group's infrastructure

The group is building these layers as YourBank.app, which is in development and does not yet offer regulated services. The platform engineering draws on the experience of Costello Global Technology, which already runs premium names as operating assets.

The risks, stated plainly

Tokenisation does not remove risk. A token may be easy to transfer but hard to sell, because a market needs buyers. The legal treatment of tokens differs between jurisdictions and is still developing. Custody failures and technical faults can cause losses that a paper record would not. Valuations of unusual assets are judgements, not facts. And regulation changes. The group treats each of these as a design constraint, which is why structure and regulatory work come before any launch.

Nothing on this page is an offer of securities or investment advice, and no token is on offer from the group today. The group's wider investment and acquisition strategy and its portfolio explain where this programme sits.