Saudi Arabia is advancing a $12.5 billion tokenization push focused on real estate and sovereign-grade infrastructure.
Crypto News
Faisal Monai, chair of droppRWA and the architect of Saudi Arabia's digital payments infrastructure, has secured $12.5 billion in mandates to bring real-world assets (RWAs) onto the blockchain. His effort begins with real estate but extends to energy, manufacturing, and other sectors of the kingdom's multi-trillion-dollar economy. Monai shared the details in an extensive interview with CoinDesk published May 15.
Monai's background in financial infrastructure spans more than two decades. By 2007, he had already led the digitization of Saudi Arabia's $4 trillion cash-heavy payments system, building SADAD, the Saudi Central Bank's digital payments network, which launched in 2004. Before SADAD, roughly 70% of bill payments across the kingdom were made in cash at physical branches. By 2025, the system had processed over 14.5 billion transactions worth approximately $250 billion.
Tokenized Real Estate Settlement by Late 2026
On Feb. 4, droppRWA completed what Monai described as the world's first tokenized property deed transfer. The transaction reduced property settlement times from days to seconds. Monai said the infrastructure is now set for a wider rollout across the kingdom's real estate pipeline, including designated investment zones.
Stablecoin-based real estate settlement is expected to go live in Saudi Arabia by late 2026. The rollout will take place in partnership with the Capital Market Authority and the Saudi Central Bank. Under that framework, developers will be able to receive cross-border capital in minutes rather than days, within a regulated environment.
Monai said his broader target is a sovereign-grade tokenized financial system operational across Saudi Arabia by 2030. He projected that several G20 markets will adopt the regulatory frameworks and infrastructure models that Saudi Arabia will have demonstrated first. "By 2030, Saudi Arabia will have demonstrated something the rest of the world will still be debating," he said.
Tokenization as a Hedge Against Global Volatility
Monai framed tokenization as a tool for protecting Gulf wealth during periods of global economic stress. "In periods of volatility, the most valuable thing for asset owners is certainty: certainty of ownership, transfer, collateral and settlement," he said. He described sovereign-native tokenization as an operating model that performs most reliably when legacy infrastructure is under strain.
Monai also addressed the role of stablecoins with caution. He warned that yield-bearing reserve products introduce contingency risk, and said Saudi Arabia's focus remains on settlement infrastructure rather than speculative instruments. "The moment reserves are deployed for returns, the guarantee becomes contingent," he said.
On recent geopolitical tension, Monai noted that crypto markets remained the only functioning markets during a weekend when traditional exchanges were closed. He said the Gulf is drawing a practical lesson from that episode, aiming to capture that always-on resilience for regulated, sovereign capital markets rather than expanding retail crypto trading.
Monai rejected the idea that Gulf states are pursuing a shift away from the US dollar. He described the region's direction as building faster, more sovereign settlement infrastructure that operates alongside existing monetary rails. "The dollar remains deeply embedded in the region and will continue to be that way," he said.
The global context supports his timeline. Tokenized US Treasuries hit a record $15.5 billion in May 2026, while the stablecoin market has grown to over $300 billion in total market capitalization. Stablecoin transaction volumes for 2025 surpassed $30 trillion, according to a May 2026 European Central Bank report. The broader tokenized RWA market stood at approximately $25 billion as of mid-2026.
