Real estate tokenization is a major disruption in an industry that has not been deeply transformed for centuries. And current forecasts massively underestimate its potential, because they ignore its impact on global finance, especially on the derivatives market.
1. Framing the opportunity: the size of the global real estate market
To understand the scale of the opportunity, you first need to visualize the size of the global real estate market.
Starting point: Visualization *“All of the World’s Money and Markets”* (Visual Capitalist, 2022)
The global real estate market is worth around 400 trillion dollars (including all asset classes). To put this figure into perspective:
| Market | Estimated value | Comparison |
|---|---|---|
| Global real estate | ~400 T$ | — |
| Global stock markets | 95.9 T$ (WFE, 2025) | 4× smaller |
| Cryptocurrencies | ~4 T$ | 100× smaller |
Real estate eclipses all other tangible asset classes.
But size is not the same as velocity. While stocks trade in milliseconds, real estate is frozen. It takes months to sell a building. Tokenization aims to wake this giant up and turn a ~400 trillion asset class into a liquid financial instrument.
Real estate sits in the “High Value, Low Liquidity” quadrant.
2. What tokenization actually changes
Increased secondary liquidity
- Trading building shares like stocks (or protocol tokens)
- Ability to buy and sell very quickly, globally, with low friction
Fractionalization and accessibility
- Lower entry tickets
- Opening access to investors who are currently excluded from the market
Programmability
- Smart contracts for rents, distributions, collateral management
- Composability with DeFi (lending, liquidity pools, indexes, vaults)
→ I will come back to the “From Concrete to Code” mechanism in another article.
3. The underestimated angle: the derivatives market
What is the derivatives market?
The derivatives market is an exchange of financial contracts (not real assets) whose value depends only on the fluctuation of another element (stocks, oil, rates).
Its role is binary:
- Hedging – locking in a future price and protecting yourself
- Speculation – betting with high leverage
The derivatives market is currently worth more than 600 trillion dollars. It is the largest market in the world.
The 2008 lesson: “Trust me” vs “Don’t trust, verify”
Before 2008, real estate derivatives operated on a “Trust me” model – opaque, impossible to audit. Today, tokenization enables a “Don’t trust, verify” model: every asset is traceable, transparent, and verifiable in real time on the blockchain.
| Era | Paradigm | Reality |
|---|---|---|
| Before 2008 (Web 1.0 / Paper) | “Trust me” | You were buying a line of code in a bank’s Excel file without knowing what was inside. Black box. |
| Post‑crisis | Massive regulation (Basel III) | Banks pulled back. The market for complex real estate derivatives died. |
| Today (Web 3.0 / Tokenization) | “Don’t trust, verify” | If you tokenize real estate debt, you can see the property address, payment history, and valuation in real time on the blockchain. |
The subprime crisis was not a real estate crisis – it was a crisis of hidden information.
The derivatives market back then was used to hide risk. Our mission today, with tokenization, is to use technology to reveal real value.
→ I will explain the situation in detail in another article.
4. Why current forecasts are underestimated
Market projections (2030–2035)
| Source | Projection | Horizon | Scope |
|---|---|---|---|
| McKinsey (2024) | 1 to 4 T$ | 2030 | All tokenized assets |
| Deloitte (2025) | 4 T$ (27% CAGR) | 2035 | Tokenized real estate only |
| BCG / ADDX (2022) | 16.1 T$ | 2030 | All tokenized assets |
| Roland Berger | >10 T$ | 2030 | All tokenized assets (conservative estimate) |
| Citi / Bernstein | 5 T$ | 2028–2030 | All tokenized assets |
Note: Deloitte estimates today’s tokenized real estate market at under 300 billion $ (2024). The projected growth corresponds to a 27% CAGR.
Key drivers: interest rates, regulation, institutional adoption, maturity of blockchain infrastructure.
My personal projection
Current forecasts are almost certainly largely underestimated because they do not take into account two fundamental factors:
- Liquid assets trade – a tokenized building is no longer a dormant asset
- Real estate tokenization will enable a controlled development of the derivatives market – unlike 2008, with full transparency
I personally expect this new asset class to be valued between 50 and 100 trillion dollars by 2035
What’s next
- Next article: The “From Concrete to Code” mechanism – how tokenization works technically
- Related article: The (lack of) disruption in real estate over the past centuries
- Deep dive: 2008 revisited – why tokenization changes the game for derivatives
- Future article: From hidden risk to revealed value – how tokenization flips the paradigm for real estate derivatives