World Liberty Financial enlists real-world asset specialist Securitize to help tokenize loan interests related to the Trump International Hotel and Resort in the Maldives.
Rather than investing directly in properties, investors will be able to purchase tokens tied to loan income, according to a Wednesday announcement timed for the private company’s Mar-A-Lago crypto conference.
World Liberty Financial is turning its attention to one of the largest digital securities companies. Securitize has worked with large asset managers such as BlackRock, Hamilton Lane and Apollo Global Markets to issue tokenized funds and private credits on public blockchains. BlackRock and Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest are also investors in the company, which plans to go public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company (CEPT) sponsored by Cantor Fitzgerald.
“We built World Liberty Financial to open decentralized finance to the world,” said Eric Trump, co-founder of the company. “With today’s announcement, we are now expanding this access to tokenized real estate.”
Eligible accredited investors will receive a fixed return and payments linked to the performance of the loan. The sale will take place under US private placement rules, with restrictions on resale.
Plans to symbolize the Maldives resort were unveiled in November. The resort, developed by DarGlobal in collaboration with the Trump Organization, is expected to include approximately 100 beach and overwater villas and be completed in 2030. In October, Eric Trump said on CoinDesk TV that WLFI planned to tokenize a new real estate project.
The latest announcement focuses on who will take care of the mechanics. Securitize will oversee the issuance and compliance of tokens representing interests in a development loan related to the project.
While the tokenization of traditional assets such as stocks and funds has attracted the attention of Wall Street firms, real estate represents a smaller share of the $25 billion tokenized assets market. Proponents argue that blockchain rails can streamline property registrations and settlement, but uneven regulation and weak secondary trading pose a risk, an EY report noted last year.
The company’s WLFI token fell 6.6% over the past 24 hours to 11.63 cents.
