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In January of 2018, I wrote an article that outlined blockchain's potential to revolutionize real estate by addressing slow transactions, title fraud, and excessive intermediaries, concepts that now align with institutional moves like BlackRock's tokenization efforts and New Jersey's land records project.
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From REITs to Real-World Assets
Traditional real estate access relied on REITs, private funds, and mortgage-backed securities with high minimums, delayed settlements, and multiple intermediaries. Tokenization shifts this by creating programmable shares on blockchain, automating compliance and enabling 24/7 transfers. BlackRock launched its USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) on Ethereum via Securitize in 2024 as a template for real estate and other assets, with Larry Fink calling it the start of tokenizing all assets, including property.
BlackRock’s Playbook
BlackRock upgrades its capital markets layer, porting existing real estate strategies, managing tens of billions in AUM onto faster, fractionalized rails without targeting individual homes. BUIDL demonstrates institutional grade on-chain transferability, positioning tokenization as a multi-trillion-dollar market where real estate leads due to its illiquidity and scale. Blackrock also backed Securitize to go public via SPAC Securitize has tokenized billions of dollars of assets, including BUIDL. Analysts project tokenized real estate growing from under $0.3 trillion in 2024 to $4 trillion by 2035 at a 27% CAGR, driven by funds, loans, and securitizations.
Make no mistake about it, BlackRock is owned by the world’s most powerful people and influential companies.
And they own a lot of things.
BlackRock's assets under management hit a record $13.46 trillion on the third-quarter market rally this year. That is Trillion with a T.
New Jersey’s 350,000-Home Blockchain Program
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Bergen County, New Jersey, partnered with Balcony on Avalanche in 2025 to migrate about 370,000 property deeds, covering $240 billion in value and $500 million in annual taxes, onto blockchain for secure, auditable records. These cryptographic deed representations focus on fraud reduction and efficiency, forming a legal foundation that could link to financial tokens later.
Two Rails of the Same Future
BlackRock handles the financial product layer with tokenized funds, while New Jersey modernizes the legal title layer, together enabling interoperable ownership and settlement records. As jurisdictions adopt similar systems, fund and deed tokens could automate cash flows and risk, transforming capital formation without speculative home trading.
Cost, Security, and Signal vs. Noise
Tokenization cuts reconciliation costs, auditing, and disputes through immutable ledgers, with real estate tokenization already at $20-33 billion and projected to reach trillions amid regulatory progress. Security addresses real-world issues, such as title challenges, as seen in BlackRock's compliant infrastructure and Bergen County's tamper-evident registry. Moves by BlackRock, Securitize, Avalanche, and counties signal scalable infrastructure over hype. Couple that with their influence and clout, and this is absolutely not noise.
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What This Means for Founders, LPs, and Operators
• For founders: The infrastructure is live and compliant. If you're building on tokenized rails, whether for fractional ownership, captable automation, or title verification, BlackRock's BUIDL and Bergen County's blockchain registry prove that institutions are willing to deploy at scale. Your go-to-market just got a major credibility boost.
• For LPs: Tokenization isn't speculative anymore, it's institutional infrastructure. BlackRock's $13.46 trillion AUM backing BUIDL signals that real estate tokenization will become a standard part of alternative asset portfolios. Expect faster liquidity, transparent reporting, and lower back-office friction in the funds you back.
• For operators: The two rails are converging. As financial tokens and deed records move onto interoperable systems, your opportunity is in the middleware building tools that connect capital formation, compliance, distribution, and ownership in real time. The companies that solve for this integration layer will capture outsized value as tokenization scales from billions to trillions.
xoxo,
Maximillian Diez
GP, Twenty Five Ventures
P.S. Stay with me on this journey.
If nothing else, thanks for reading.
