…and why the market is still missing end-to-end solutions
Hi everyone—my name is Julia Filobokova. I’m the CEO and co-founder of Sabai Protocol, a project tokenizing real world assets—real estate, businesses, and startups. In this article, I’ll explain why tokenization has taken off, what problems it solves for developers, and who it’s a good fit for—and who it isn’t. At the end, you’ll also find a set of questions to help you check if your business is ready for tokenization.
From Real Estate Development to Building Tokenization Solutions for Real Estate
My team and I have been researching tokenization for nearly five years. Our journey didn’t start with an idea to “build a product for the market,” but with a very practical question: could tokenization be used as a real tool for our own real estate development business?
Back then, there were simply no ready-made solutions available. So we built our own product and launched it in the Thai real estate market, working with real assets and real investors.
About a year and a half ago, we started seeing growing interest in this space from other developers and businesses. Since then, we have consulted with more than 100 companies and rolled out several white-label solutions across different countries.
That path—from solving our own development needs to working across multiple markets—is what gave us the hands-on expertise we now want to share.
Why Everyone Is Talking About Tokenization of Real World Assets—and Why There’s Still So Much Confusion Around It
In 2018, a part of the St. Regis Aspen Resort wasn’t offered to funds or institutional investors, but to a broad audience through a digital token called Aspen Coin. This project is often cited as one of the first real-world, practical examples of tokenizing real-world assets.
The point isn’t that it was a “loud project”—it’s how it was implemented. It wasn’t a traditional investment product, and it wasn’t an NFT experiment either—it was built on a smart contract with a direct legal linkage between the token and real estate.
By breaking the asset into smaller fractions and making entry easier, the property became far more accessible and potentially more liquid than traditional real estate. And by opening the door to private investors worldwide with smaller ticket sizes, it became one of the reasons tokenization started gaining attention.
Tokenization is still discussed more as an idea or a concept than as a practical business tool, and that’s what creates confusion. When the conversation shifts to implementation—what exactly changes inside a business once you launch tokenization—there’s often no clear, definitive answer.
The landscape is made even more confusing by what the market offers. Most solutions developers come across cover only separate parts of tokenization: the technology, the legal structure, or the platform. All of these components matter, but on their own they don’t come together into a workable model for raising capital.
What often gets left out is the key question: who is the tokenized product for, and how will it actually be sold?
Tokenization isn’t a marketing tool that magically solves your funding problem. It’s a channel for accessing capital and expanding your funnel. It opens the door to a new audience and new markets, but how a specific business uses that channel is a separate challenge. It impacts the product, distribution, sales, investor communications, and internal processes.
Іn practice, the main problem with tokenization today isn’t the technology. The infrastructure is evolving, and the tools already exist. The real challenge is the lack of an integrated approach—one that treats the asset, the product, the investor, and the capital-raising process as a single system.
Why Developers Are Looking at Tokenization Right Now
Over the last one to two years, raising capital in real estate development through traditional channels has objectively become harder. The classic model—build, sell full units, reinvest—more and more often doesn’t work the way it used to. And it’s not about project quality, it’s about a changed environment.
Higher rates in the U.S. and Europe have made expensive money the new normal. Investors are less willing to put large amounts into a single asset and are diversifying more. Loans may still be available on paper, but terms are tougher: banks want pre-sales, and without additional liquidity those pre-sales are hard to secure. Add to that the geography of capital: developers mostly raise money locally, and reaching international investors with traditional tools is still a long, complex, and costly path.
On top of that, competition in the market has visibly intensified. If a developer uses the same sales funnels, the same installment plans, and the same financing approaches as most players, the outcome is usually average—right in line with the market. Standing out is getting harder.
At the same time, a new generation of investors is entering the market—younger, digital-first, and more time-sensitive. They care about simplicity, flexibility, transparency, and the ability to manage investments without long entry and exit cycles. Meanwhile, the real estate market still largely operates on models formed decades ago, with very little structural innovation.
What Real Estate Developers Are Really Looking For
We speak with dozens of developers and other businesses in consultations every month. It’s notable that developers almost never frame their request as “we want tokenization.” Most of the time, they’re coming in with very practical problems to solve.
The first—and by far the most common—request is an attempt to solve a sales problem or attract financing. When traditional sales slow down and no longer cover a project’s liquidity needs, a developer starts looking for alternative sources of capital.
The second type of request comes from more mature players. These developers already have sales that work, a strong product, and well-established processes. Their goal isn’t to “save” a project—it’s to scale: enter new markets, launch the next construction phases or new projects, and expand capital-raising channels without having to completely rebuild their current model.
There’s also a third scenario: interest driven by the trend. The word “tokenization” is everywhere—on conference stages, in conversations with investors, across the professional community. In these cases, the interest is real, but the understanding of how the tool works in practice and what problems it actually solves often remains superficial.
Whatever the initial request is, you need a proper diagnosis to understand how tokenization will work in a specific case and which business problems it can actually solve. And the first thing to look at is the product.
For whom tokenization makes sense (and for whom it doesn’t)
Looking at real requests and real launches, the main interest in tokenization still comes from developers and builders. Geography almost doesn’t matter: Asia, Europe, the CIS countries, Australia, the U.S.
Around 10% of inquiries are outside classic real estate. These can be projects in car leasing, precious stones, works of art, and more rarely the tokenization of corporate instruments. But regardless of the niche, the readiness criteria for a project turn out to be the same.
Who Tokenization Is a Fit For
If a business already has a product—or a clear understanding of what that product will be—tokenization can be a good solution. It can be used for finished, income-producing assets as well as at the project stage, as long as there’s purchased land, a strategy, and an investment plan.
What matters more is this: the business understands exactly what it’s offering to the market.
No one knows a business’s product better than its own team—its value, constraints, and unit economics. That’s why the key inputs for tokenization always have to come from the client: what exactly is being tokenized, what rights the investor receives, what the returns are based on, and in what volumes and on what terms. The tool can be flexible, but it doesn’t replace product thinking inside the company.
In practice, the businesses that usually make it to launch are the ones that already understand their target audience and have experience in the market through a traditional model. In that case, tokenization becomes a way to structure and scale an existing logic—not an attempt to build it from scratch.
Who Tokenization Isn’t a Fit For
There are several signs that are usually picked up already in the first conversation and show that the project isn’t for this yet.
- The business exists only as an idea.
- The product doesn’t work in a traditional model yet, or it’s still unclear how it will reach customers.
- There’s no engaged person inside the project—someone ready to dive in and act as a link between the business team and external vendors.
- There’s no willingness to do marketing and market work, and instead there’s an expectation that the tool will solve these tasks on its own.
Most often, it’s not a weak project—it’s inflated expectations of the technology. These teams either come to realize they’re not ready yet, or they return to the topic later with a different level of maturity and clarity.
How to Know If You Need Tokenization
To wrap up, I want to leave you with something practical. Below is a list of questions that will help you assess whether your business is ready to start building the processes and working through tokenization. They’ll also help you understand what to ask potential partners and vendors—and how to evaluate their professionalism.
- What exactly are you tokenizing—and why? (the asset, its stage, and the logic behind using tokenization)
- Who is the investor in this model—and where are they based? (investor type and target geography)
- What business problem is tokenization solving for you? (liquidity, access to capital, diversification, scaling, etc.)
- What return model are you offering investors? (guaranteed yield, a share of operating profit, asset appreciation, or a combination)
- What volume do you plan to tokenize, and on what timeline?
- What channels are you considering for marketing and attracting investors?
- Who inside the company owns this process? (decision-making, coordination, and accountability for results)
Answering these questions will help you take a clear-eyed look at why you need tokenization and whether your business is ready for a tool like this.
I’d love it if you shared in the comments whether you’ve worked with competent tokenization partners or vendors—or, on the contrary, had the opposite experience.
And I’d also appreciate any questions or topics you’d like me to cover in future articles.