Latvia is working toward a regulatory framework for tokenizing real-world assets in the first half of 2027, with commercial property seen as a likely starting point and government bonds on the priority list. However, the legal assessment required to underpin the rules remains unfinished, making the timetable conditional on further work and the incoming government.
Economics Minister Viktors Valainis said at the UN:BLOCK fintech conference in Riga that his ministry is coordinating with the central bank, the Finance Ministry and industry representatives. “If everything goes smoothly, I think next year, first half of the next year, we will already have the regulation,” Valainis said. He framed the initiative as a way to attract investment, though no commercial partners or quantified benefits were identified.
The original government action plan required an assessment of needed legal changes by October 1, but Valainis confirmed the work is “still ongoing.” Unresolved questions include how tokenized ownership rights would be recognized, which statutes require amendment, and what safeguards would govern issuance and trading. Anti-money-laundering controls are central: “We don’t want to create something with a big boom and then with a big collapse,” the minister said.
Commercial property is viewed as a “good start” because tokens could represent interests in a property-owning vehicle, contractual claims or other rights. Clear rules would still be needed for valuation, ownership records, transfers, custody, investor eligibility and enforcement. The article notes Goldman Sachs’ blockchain-native real estate fund tokenizes fund shares inside an established fund structure rather than replacing legal infrastructure.
On sovereign debt, Valainis said tokenizing Latvian government bonds is on the priority list and indicated the first part of the following year could be possible once rules are in place. European precedents include Slovenia’s €30 million digital sovereign bond issued in July 2024 under a European Central Bank experiment. For Latvia, bond tokenization would require clarity on issuance, investor rights, custody and settlement.
Political continuity is uncertain. Valainis’ party won no seats in October’s election. The country is also developing its position under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework, and Paybis has MiCA and PSD2 authorizations from Latvia’s central bank. Valainis reiterated personal support for a small national Bitcoin reserve and plans to enable tax payments in crypto, but neither has an approved allocation or confirmed implementation timetable.
Separately, an analysis of tokenized real-world assets argues the market has solved issuance but not utilization. Aggregate distributed value is between $31 billion and $34 billion, yet only about $3 billion actively participates in DeFi as collateral or credit, with RWA-backed loans near $1 billion. The gap is attributed to permissioned wallets, mint/redeem windows and approved counterparty lists rather than insufficient demand.
Tokenized Treasuries account for $13 billion to $16 billion, or 45% to 50% of the distributed market. The analysis argues their real proposition is collateral mobility, not just yield. Tokenized gold shows secondary liquidity is achievable: the segment is $5.5 billion to $7.3 billion, with spot volume above $90 billion in one quarter and concentration in XAUT and PAXG. However, RWA perpetuals are capturing demand for on-chain exposure to traditional assets; a venue such as Hyperliquid accounted for 51% of RWA perpetual volume, with a ratio near 99% against Bitcoin perpetual volume in weekly measurement.
Multi-chain fragmentation compounds the problem. Value is distributed across 38 networks, with Ethereum near 45.8%, BNB Chain at 15.4%, and Solana at $3.68 billion. The relevant metric is secondary turnover per chain, not value per chain. Custody and counterparty risk also separate verifiable proof of reserves from legal questions such as insolvency treatment, segregation and bankruptcy remoteness.
The analysis concludes the sector has product, demand and distribution channels, but lacks a deep secondary market and permanent rules. Projections from $1.6 trillion in base scenarios to $11 trillion in aggressive estimates by 2030 depend on settlement infrastructure, custody regimes and legal execution capacity for collateral, not simply on demand for digital formats.
