Exclusive: Lumia CEO and Polygon exec talk $220m skyscrapers and real estate tokenization

Spread over 50,000 square meters and located in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, the massive $220 million facility is designed to accommodate 300 residential and commercial units and is set to become a global crypto hub. According to Lumia CEO Kala Ali, the construction of the twin towers will be completed by the second quarter of 2026 and will be fully tokenized.

Ali said Lumia Towers is a significant shift in how people approach property ownership. By using the tokenization model, they hope to make the real estate market more accessible, open, and barrier-free for retail investors.

According to LandShares, the current market value of tokenized real estate is around $187 billion. However, by 2030 it is projected to grow from $3.5 trillion in a bearish scenario to $10 trillion in a bullish scenario, indicating a potential 50-fold increase. This explosive expansion is primarily driven by businesses seeking to tokenize high-value assets using blockchain technology, allowing investors to own commercial and residential real estate through the purchase of tokens.

However, despite the promise of democratizing real estate investment, issues such as regulatory complexities, market liquidity issues, and technical integration of physical assets with digital tokens are still affecting this relatively new model and may pose potential risks in the future.

For example, the actual liquidity of tokenized real estate will still depend on the development of active secondary markets. Without sufficient trading volume, it may be difficult for investors to buy or sell real estate ownership tokens, limiting the expected liquidity benefits. At this time, the Lumia team has not provided any clarification on how to solve this problem.

In the past, other tokenization projects have focused on existing buildings. In the US, TokenInvest acquired a property in Longmont, Colorado for $740,000 and tokenized it, allowing third-party investors to directly contribute 97% of the purchase capital.

Unlike previous projects, Lumia Towers will be the first large-scale RWA real estate project built by Web3.

Boris Spremo, CEO of Enterprise & Financial Services Labs, said that real estate has always been one of the markets where the barriers to entry are "very high".

In the case of Turkey, where Lumia Towers will be built, property prices will continue to rise. Analysts predict that property prices in Turkey will increase by 10-15%. However, investor interest in real estate in the region is also quite high. In January 2025, home sales in Turkey increased by 39.7% year-on-year to 112,173 units, the second highest figure on record for January. Mortgage-backed sales also grew by 182.8% compared to the previous year.

Spremo believes the project will be able to make real estate ownership more accessible, as RWA tokenization can take physical properties and “break them down into potential $1 entry points through fractional ownership.” However, the cost of each unit will still depend on property prices in the area, which have shown no signs of coming down recently.

Ali explained that ownership rights of the tokenized twin skyscrapers will be structured through special purpose vehicles, or SPVs, that will purchase the tokenized properties. SPV shares will be issued as ERC-20 tokens on the blockchain.

“Token holders will have governance rights, allowing them to vote in making decisions regarding the use of the property, such as whether it should be rented out or sold,” Ali added.

According to Ali, the Lumia Towers token will be listed on the Lumia Chain, making it easier for retail investors to access it. The token will also gain access to DeFi protocols through Lumia Stream and the Lumia ecosystem.

During the tokenization process, Polygon's role is to enable developers like Lumia to optimize their blockchain for this specific use. Boris Spremo explained that Polygon is able to reduce the cost of ownership of $220 million worth of infrastructure without compromising security.

Polygon's infrastructure specifically handles high-value applications where Ethereum alone is too expensive or too slow. "You can't charge a $50 transaction fee or wait 15 minutes for confirmation when you're splitting $220 million worth of assets," Spremo said.

Moving forward, Lumia CEO Kal Ali said Lumia aims to expand the Lumia Towers model to other regions outside of Turkey, namely the Middle East and North Africa, the US, and Europe.

Spremo, Polygon Labs’ head of corporate and financial services, predicts that the future will be