Tokenizing ruins: Why selling Gaza land on blockchain is flawed concept
Ruins on the blockchain: Why Gaza’s tokenization plan sparked outrage
Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization is gradually entering the mainstream. At the same time, even the mention of RWA can provoke a wave of outrage — as happened in response to a proposal to digitize and sell land in war-torn Gaza.
According to the Financial Times, consulting firm BCG, together with representatives from the Tony Blair Institute, presented a plan to create a tokenized trust that would hold land in the Gaza Strip and sell fractional ownership to investors via blockchain. All of this was tied to financial incentives for Palestinians to voluntarily leave the territory.
RWA technology as a tool for “new development”
A presentation titled “Great Trust” outlined a plan to transfer public land in Gaza into a special trust structure, tokenize the ownership rights, and sell fractional shares to investors via blockchain. Palestinians would also be able to contribute their private land in exchange for a token granting them the right to housing. The broader vision proposed rebuilding the territory in the image of Dubai — complete with artificial islands, districts named after Elon Musk and Donald Trump, and blockchain-powered trade initiatives.
One section of the plan explicitly referenced Donald Trump’s vision of transforming Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” The proposal, which he announced during a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, included the idea that the United States would “take control” of Gaza and that its Palestinian residents would be “temporarily relocated” to neighboring countries.
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The plan sparked international condemnation — from the UN’s warning against ethnic cleansing to outright rejections by Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, China, Brazil, and Germany. Nevertheless, Trump doubled down, publicly stating, “It’s a great idea. It should be done,” while members of his administration even discussed the potential use of military force. In Israel, far-right circles embraced the initiative as a historic opportunity to permanently remove Palestinians from Gaza.
Public reaction: between shock and outrage
While the technical structure of the proposal — establishing a legal entity, tokenizing its shares, and enabling on-chain trading — aligns with legitimate models for real-world asset tokenization, applying such tools to a context marked by war and forced displacement sparked an understandable backlash. Activists described the proposal not just as absurd, but as deeply immoral — calling it “grotesque,” “evil,” and “an attempt to rob the people who were driven from their homes.”
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In response to the controversy, both BCG and the Tony Blair Institute publicly distanced themselves from the initiative. Still, the mere existence of a plan envisioning the relocation of up to 25% of Gaza’s population, financed by private capital and administered via blockchain infrastructure, ignited a debate that has extended well beyond the conflict zone itself.
Technology without context is a risk
What makes this case stand out in the crypto space is its technological framing. On paper, it's a textbook example of RWA tokenization — using blockchain to fractionalize land ownership and raise capital for development. But in practice, it's an attempt to deploy a technical tool in a setting where fundamental prerequisites are absent: security, legal clarity, mutual consent, and trust.
The project even mentions launching a Gaza-specific stablecoin, blockchain-based trade initiatives, and creating a “crypto-friendly environment” — all of which read like a copy-paste from Dubai pitch decks. Yet experts doubt the feasibility of such ambitions. Real estate tokenization remains stalled even in stable jurisdictions, and the idea of rolling it out amid post-war devastation borders on fantasy.
Conclusion
The concept of tokenizing Gaza’s land may sound ambitious, but it is its detachment from the lived humanitarian reality that raises the most concern. The more ambitious the RWA space becomes, the more it must reckon not just with code and capital, but with ethics, law, and critical judgment.For now, the Gaza Riviera remains little more than a provocative theory — with no credible path to implementation in the foreseeable future.
