CNBC recently reported that commercial real estate is "embracing blockchain," citing Deloitte's $4 trillion tokenization forecast for 2035. The piece got attention. It also got a major fact wrong.
The article claims US citizens cannot invest in tokenized US real estate. That's false.
US investors are buying tokenized real estate today. RedSwan serves accredited investors through Regulation D. Lofty sells fractionalized US rentals to both accredited and non-accredited investors. Republic operates under Reg CF and Reg A+ exemptions for retail investors.
Access is limited. But it exists. The article confused a complex regulatory situation with a blanket prohibition.
What CNBC missed matters more than what it got wrong. The regulatory environment is changing fast, and those changes will determine whether tokenization becomes standard infrastructure or stays a niche product.
The Regulatory Shift Is Real
Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law in July 2025. Most coverage focused on stablecoins, but the implications go further.
The act clarifies that payment stablecoins from permitted issuers are neither securities nor commodities. This removes one legal barrier to using stablecoins for settlement in securities transactions.
That matters for tokenized real estate. Most deals still settle in fiat through bank wires even when the security itself is tokenized. Atomic settlement - where both the security token and payment move on-chain at the same time - was legally unclear. The GENIUS Act removes the objection on the payment side.
You still need the securities side to work. You still need market infrastructure to support it. But it's progress.
More directly relevant: SEC Chair Paul Atkins is developing an "innovation exemption" for tokenized securities. He stated publicly in October that the SEC aims to formalize this by late 2025 or early 2026. This exemption would let platforms operate under principles-based compliance rather than full prescriptive requirements that make most offerings impractical for retail investors.
Atkins has been clear about direction. His July remarks described a vision where firms can enter the market without burdensome requirements. Instead, they'd comply with principles-based conditions designed to achieve the core aims of securities law.
The SEC is telling firms that want to tokenize real estate, equities, and bonds: we're open for business.
What Blocks Access Today
The barrier isn't technology. The barrier is that tokenized real estate is treated as a security, which means:
For accredited investors ($200k+ annual income or $1M+ net worth): Access exists today through Reg D offerings. This works. It's happening. But it limits the market to about 10% of US households.
For non-accredited investors: Access is possible through Reg A+ or crowdfunding exemptions, but the process is expensive and complex. Most issuers skip it. Some platforms like Republic have figured it out, but they're exceptions.
The innovation exemption would create a middle path. Instead of choosing between full SEC registration (expensive, slow) or limiting yourself to accredited investors only (small market), platforms could use token standards with built-in compliance like ERC-3643. This means automatic whitelisting, transfer restrictions, and identity verification coded into the token itself.
The Infrastructure Problem
At RWA.io, we track over $340+ billion in tokenized assets across 400+ projects. We see the gaps every day.
The CNBC piece highlights transferable mortgage bonds - the idea that you can move your 4.5% loan from one property to another using blockchain, skip the prepayment penalty, and reinvest that capital.
The idea is sound. The execution doesn't exist at scale.
We've had conversations with issuers who want exactly this. They call their lender. The lender says no. Banks have their own underwriting standards. They won't accept an AI risk model they didn't build. Getting one bank to participate is hard. Getting enough banks to create a functioning market takes years.
The technology works. The workflow doesn't match how banks operate. Platforms like BV Innovation are working on it, but this requires changing institutional behavior, not just building better software.
Liquidity Still Doesn't Exist
Turning a property into tokens is straightforward now. Finding buyers for those tokens is not hard if you're targeting accredited investors or foreign capital. Getting out of your position later - that's where it breaks down.
Most tokenized properties trade on the platform where they were issued. Order books are thin. Spreads are wide. You can buy in. You often can't get out without taking a significant haircut or waiting months.
On our platform, we're building this orchestration layer for issuers and investors to find, evaluate, launch, trade, and manage tokenized real-world assets through their entire lifecycle. But we're realistic about the timeline. Deloitte's $4 trillion projection assumes liquid secondary markets where tokenized real estate trades like REITs. We're not close to that yet.
Foreign investors participate now because tokenization solves a real problem for them: direct access to US commercial real estate without complex legal structures. For US investors, the value proposition is weaker until liquidity improves.
What to Watch
First: Watch when the SEC finalizes the innovation exemption. If it happens, if it includes the principles-based framework Atkins described, that opens the market to retail investors. Not speculation. Actual access.
Second: Watch which institutions put capital on their balance sheets. Marketing partnerships don't mean anything. Capital deployment does. When banks, insurance companies, and pension funds hold tokenized assets as part of their investment portfolio, that signals liquidity is real.
Third: Watch for platforms that solve the secondary market problem. The winner won't have the best tokenization tech. Everyone can tokenize properties now. The winner will build a marketplace where investors can actually exit positions at fair prices.
The CNBC article quotes someone saying the entire real estate industry will be on blockchain within 10 years. I don't believe that timeline. But we are at an inflection point.
The GENIUS Act is law. The innovation exemption is coming. Major institutions like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton are already tokenizing funds. Nasdaq filed in September 2025 to allow tokenized securities trading on its exchange.
The technology is ready. The regulatory framework is forming. What's missing is infrastructure - the rails that connect issuers to investors to liquidity providers. That takes time to build.
For Issuers Today
If you're considering tokenization now, start small. Tokenize one property. Learn the compliance requirements. Test whether investors actually want this format.
Don't wait for perfect regulations. But understand that tokenization solves specific problems, not all problems.
It helps you access foreign capital. It reduces paperwork. It enables fractional ownership. It doesn't automatically create liquidity. It doesn't eliminate prepayment penalties unless your bank agrees. It doesn't bypass securities law.
The shift to tokenized real estate is real. The timeline is longer than headlines suggest. And success depends less on blockchain and more on solving boring problems like compliance, liquidity, and getting banks to change how they underwrite loans.
The regulatory environment under Trump and Atkins is more favorable than it's been in years. That matters. But favorable regulations don't build markets. Infrastructure builds markets.
We're still building it.
Marko Vidrih is co-founder and COO at RWA.io. This column is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
