Mohammad Raafi Hossain on stage at Dubai Fintech Summit in 2025
FASSET
International finance has all the time had an unstated rule: entry and alternative can be found should you had been born in the correct place and maintain the proper passport.
Mohammad Raafi Hossain refused to just accept that. He constructed Fasset, now licensed in ten jurisdictions spanning from Bahrain to Malaysia, and headquartered in Dubai, as a regulated bridge between actual belongings and the individuals who had been by no means purported to put money into them.
What started as a mission assertion is turning into one of the crucial bold experiments in monetary inclusion. “Everybody, no matter their passport, ought to be capable of take part within the international monetary system,” says Hossain.
A New Silk Route of Tokenized Finance
“Consider us because the Revolut for the area from Morocco to Malaysia,” Hossain tells me throughout our assembly. “And proper in the midst of that map is Dubai, traditionally, and now digitally, the fulcrum of worldwide commerce.”
He’s proper. The metaphor works completely. For hundreds of years, caravans crossed deserts and oceans to maneuver gold, spices, and silk. As we speak, tokens, digital representations of bodily belongings, are transmitted in seconds throughout borders the place cash can’t transfer.
In lots of capital-controlled economies, residents can purchase an iPhone however can’t put money into Apple inventory. They will use Google, however can’t purchase Alphabet inventory. They will earn in {dollars}, however can’t legally ship them out. “We’ve successfully locked two billion folks out of the worldwide monetary markets,” Hossain says. “Tokenization changes that.”
Why This Time, Tokenization Would possibly Really Work
We’ve heard the promise earlier than. Again in 2019, the crypto business declared that “everything will be tokenized.” The safety token providing frenzy that adopted fizzled out quick, buried beneath dangerous timing, regulatory confusion, and a scarcity of liquidity.
So, what’s totally different now? Have been we incorrect or simply too early?
As we speak, regulators corresponding to Dubai’s Digital Property Regulatory Authority (VARA), the Central Bank of Bahrain, and Malaysia’s Securities Fee have established formal regimes for tokenized devices. On the similar time, institutional giants corresponding to BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and even Tether are quietly legitimizing the motion.
This time, regulation is the infrastructure.
From Regulation to Actual Inclusion
Fasset’s regulatory footprint is spectacular. Licensed throughout ten markets, the corporate acts because the distribution layer for tokenized belongings issued by regulated companions, protecting equities, sukuk, gold. “We don’t tokenize the asset ourselves,” Hossain clarifies. “We work with licensed issuers. Our function is to make these merchandise out there to 1.7 million clients, in a approach that’s compliant and accessible.”
Accessibility, nevertheless, is the place the true revolution lies.
In one of the crucial telling examples, Hossain describes a buddy: “He graduated from Stanford, lives in Bangladesh, works for Google, and makes use of a MacBook. However he can’t put money into Alphabet inventory due to capital controls. That’s not honest.”
He’s proper. It’s absurd.
With platforms like Fasset, that very same engineer can now make investments ten or 100 {dollars} within the very corporations whose merchandise he makes use of every day. Giving folks energy over their very own cash and funding selections provides folks financial dignity.
The Highway Forward for RWA Tokenization
Then comes the philosophical twist. “If you concentrate on early human commerce,” Hossain says, “a wheat-producing village would swap with a rice-producing village. That disappeared with fiat forex. However tokenization brings barter again.”
He’s not exaggerating. On Fasset, customers can already swap gold for tokenized Nvidia inventory or change Malaysian sukuk for Bitcoin with out ever touching fiat. “I may swap a tokenized diamond for a tokenized warehouse,” he laughs.
As somebody who has spent 20 years structuring offers, I discover the phrase “a tokenized diamond for a tokenized warehouse” each fascinating and uncomfortable. It forces you to just accept that the logic of finance is altering. Worth is now not trapped inside borders, workplace hours, or long-form subscription paperwork. It’s turning into a set of programmable relationships that may be priced, pledged, and settled in seconds.
Earlier than we finish the dialog, I ask Hossain the plain query. Will this wave of RWA tokenization find yourself just like the safety token hype of 2019. “We’re doing about half a billion {dollars} a month in tokenized real-world asset transactions,” he says. “That tells its personal story.” Then he provides, “All belongings will probably be on blockchain quicker than we predict.”
On the numbers and on the trajectory, he’s probably right.
From my vantage level, spending most of my days protecting founders, exchanges, and tokenization platforms aligned with regulators, the image is evident. The subsequent chapter of worldwide finance is not going to be written in buying and selling flooring in New York or courtrooms in London. It is going to be dreamt up by founders like Hossain, constructed by platforms like Fasset, and formed by regulators like VARA throughout exhausting coverage conversations in locations like Dubai.
Disclaimer: I’m a working towards crypto lawyer within the UAE. As a part of my authorized observe, I supplied consulting to UAE authorities entities and related crypto corporations.
