tZERO CEO Alan Konevsky says real estate tokenization is operational, with projects trading and assets moving, but the market remains limited to niche alternative trading systems and specialized use cases. The technology has proven viable, but widespread adoption remains elusive. According to Konevsky, the industry now faces a different challenge: moving from boutique infrastructure to mainstream acceptance.
Konevsky argues that three developments are required for tokenization to expand beyond its current confines: larger-scale participation, cross-asset integration, and breaking down platform silos. None of these, he says, has materialized at the necessary scale.
The Scale Problem
Tokenization infrastructure exists, but it primarily serves smaller, specialized projects. Konevsky believes that to reach a broader market, the industry needs commitment from medium to large-scale real estate sponsors. “I think you’re going to need to have some medium to large-scale projects, medium to large-scale market participants to push out product that isn’t siloed to kind of niche ATS and niche use cases, but it’s really market-facing,” Konevsky says.
This is a chicken-and-egg problem: the infrastructure is ready, but without large sponsors, only early adopters and specialized investors are participating. Konevsky suggests that sponsors with significant capital must treat tokenization as a core capital formation strategy, not just an experiment. Until that happens, tokenization will remain limited to boutique projects and smaller pools of investors.
Konevsky also emphasizes simplicity and transparency for broader adoption. “Tokenization is still at a nascent stage of its development,” he says. “Keeping it simple is important, so well-known assets with stable revenue that present a clear, easy-to-digest picture to retail, or retail-plus type investors are important.” In other words, mainstream investors need familiar, straightforward offerings—not complex, experimental structures.
The Cross-Asset Integration Gap
Konevsky identifies a second barrier: the lack of consumer-facing applications that integrate tokenized real estate with other asset classes. “It’s also consumer-facing applications, particularly multi and cross-asset applications that let you trade crypto and public stocks and tokenize real estate all in one world, across each other,” he says.
He argues that adoption will accelerate when investors can manage a diversified portfolio—including traditional securities, digital assets, and tokenized real estate—within a single platform. Isolated tokenization platforms cannot drive mass adoption; integration across asset classes is essential.
Konevsky believes interoperability is key: “You’re going to see more retail interest and more institutional interest in this as an asset class, in part because, again, it’s because of its interoperability with other tokenized asset classes.”
Currently, tokenized real estate assets trade on specialized platforms designed for that purpose. The next step, Konevsky says, is to connect these platforms so investors can access and trade a range of tokenized assets in one place.
Breaking Down Platform Silos
The third obstacle is the fragmentation of trading platforms. “What people actually need is they need to break down more walls to get a range of assets that are trading on a bunch of little ATSs to become more open source and more available to be traded, at least in a regulated ATS environment,” Konevsky says.
He sees the current structure—where different tokenized assets are available only on separate, specialized platforms—as a significant barrier. Investors do not want to manage multiple accounts just to access various asset classes. Instead, they want integrated access across platforms and asset types.
tZERO is working to address this issue. “Our goal is to grow the community and to feed the supply-demand flywheel in our marketplace,” Konevsky says. “You don’t do that by constricting it artificially. Again, our marketplace is fragmented enough.”
The company recently announced that it would be “platform agnostic, protocol agnostic and asset agnostic,” in Konevsky’s words, aiming to serve as a bridge between traditional finance and digital finance, issuers and investors, and various market participants.
The Super App Vision
Konevsky describes the ultimate goal as a “super app” that integrates multiple asset classes and trading platforms. “The super app conversation is going to be really important,” he says, though he does not specify which companies might build such applications or when they might arrive.
This super app would make real estate tokenization mainstream by embedding it in a broader, multi-asset investment experience. Investors would not focus on the fact that they are buying tokenized real estate; they would simply allocate capital across their preferred mix of assets, some of which happen to be tokenized.
Konevsky acknowledges that this convergence will not happen overnight. It requires coordination between infrastructure providers, real estate sponsors, and technology platforms. While the path forward is clear, the timeline is uncertain.
What’s Already Working
Despite current challenges, some tokenized real estate projects are already trading. tZERO has offered trading for tokenized real estate since 2019, including the St. Regis Aspen hotel. “It’s a single asset. It’s been a terrific asset on our platform, and we’re very grateful to have it,” Konevsky says.
The company has announced partnerships with blockchain infrastructure providers like Polymesh and plans to go public, which could demonstrate tokenization in public equity markets outside of the traditional clearing agency and stock exchange environment.
Whether these developments signal the beginning of broader integration or whether mainstream adoption requires a fundamentally different level of scale and connectivity will become clearer as larger real estate sponsors decide whether to commit to tokenization strategies in 2025 and beyond. For now, the industry remains in a holding pattern, waiting for the first wave of large-scale projects to push tokenization into the mainstream.
