World Liberty Financial is tapping real-world asset specialist Securitize to help tokenize interest on loans tied to the Trump International Hotel and Resort in the Maldives.
Instead of direct equity in the properties, investors will be able to purchase tokens tied to loan proceeds, according to a Wednesday announcement timed for the private company’s Mar-A-Lago crypto conference.
World Liberty Financial is turning to one of the largest digital securities companies. Securitize has worked with major asset managers such as BlackRock, Hamilton Lane and Apollo Global Markets to issue tokenized funds and private credit 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 that access to tokenized real estate.”
Eligible accredited investors will receive a fixed return and payments tied to the loan performance. The sale will be conducted under US private placement rules, with restrictions on resale.
Plans to tokenize the Maldives resort were unveiled in November. The resort, developed by DarGlobal in collaboration with the Trump Organization, is expected to include around 100 beach and overwater villas and is expected to be completed in 2030. In October, Eric Trump said on CoinDesk TV that WLFI was planning to tokenize a new real estate project.
The latest announcement focuses on who will be in charge of the mechanics. Securitize will oversee the issuance and fulfillment of tokens representing interests in a development loan related to the project.
While the tokenization of traditional assets like stocks and funds has caught the attention of Wall Street firms, real estate represents a smaller portion of the $25 billion tokenized asset market. Proponents argue that blockchain rails can streamline property registrations and settlement, but uneven regulation and little secondary trading pose a risk, an EY report noted last year.
The company’s WLFI token has fallen 6.6% in the last 24 hours to 11.63 cents.
