Saudi Arabia has not tokenized a property. It has struck at the heart of a system that Europe has protected for two centuries.
In Riyadh, a minister approves a resolution and, without further formality, a real property title is fractioned into digital units directly linked—literally “linked”—to the state registry. It is traded, transferred, settled. Operational. Real. Without asking anyone’s permission.
In Europe, at the same time, a legal committee debates whether a notary can accept a smart contract without destabilizing the legal edifice built since 1862. That is the difference. And it hurts.
Because this is not about technology. We all have the technology. This is about who controls the institutional architecture that gives life to the right in rem.
In Saudi Arabia there is a single center of decision-making. In Europe there is not one guild: there are twenty-seven corporate ecosystems—registries, notarial systems and professional bodies—that make their living from property working exactly as it did two centuries ago.
MiCA is an impeccable piece of regulation. It puts us at the top in the digital management of the token. But as soon as the token tries to touch the title, the wall appears: delegated public attestation, numerus clausus, mandatory in-person formalities, fee schedules that no one questions, and a registry that continues to operate as it did in the 19th century, but with better connectivity (wifi).
Spain is not the exception. It is the clearest case. Here the Land Registry has immense functional autonomy, and the notary remains the mandatory guardian of the contract. No one—neither politicians nor regulators—dares to suggest that perhaps a state ledger could fulfill part of those functions without charging 1,200 euros per mortgage.
Italy maintains a Catasto that no digital plan has managed to budge. France preserves a notarial monopoly worthy of Napoleon. Germany keeps territorial notaries by district as if they were fiefdoms. Portugal and Italy close off professional access with an impenetrable numerus clausus. Mexico and Brazil sustain cartórios whose local power exceeds that of many regulators.
They all digitize processes. None of them cedes power.
Argentina moved fast: RG 1069, RG 1081. Tokenization of real estate, trusts, funds, machinery and invoices. But in the end, the escribano is still there, the trustee is still there, the Caja de Valores is still there, and the traditional title is still the one in charge.
Institutions do not disappear. They reconfigure themselves. And while they reconfigure, they block.
Saudi Arabia does not have that problem. It does not need to negotiate with anyone.
In 2026 it will publish the technical standards and, if it so chooses, today’s “linked to official records” will become a model in which the state ledger is the main operational reference for the right in rem.
In 2026 Europe will still be debating whether a hash can be incorporated into a notarial deed without the system collapsing. The blockage is not produced by a single professional body. It is produced by an entire institutional architecture—notarial system, registry, cadastre, fee schedules, territorial competences and mortgage principles—designed so that property does not change abruptly.
This is not a technological race. It is an institutional execution in real time.
The humiliation does not lie in what we do not know how to do. It lies in what we cannot do without the permission of structures created to perpetuate themselves.
Of course, the notarial profession is not the cause; it is just one more cog. The system as a whole is built to preserve stability, not to absorb structural innovation.
Europe does not work through isolated guilds. It works through institutional architectures that interlock with one another:
– notarial system – land registry – cadastre – professional associations – fee schedules – territorial competences – consolidated case law – ministries with inherited functions – lowest-common-denominator European directives – historic civil legislation – numerus clausus of rights in rem – delegated public attestation – 19th-century mortgage principles
And that is the truth no one wants to admit: in the coming decade, digital property will be fully realized where institutions do not block it…, and it will remain a decorative reflection where institutions protect themselves under the excuse of protecting the citizen.
Welcome to the real world. Here the winner is not the one who codes best. The winner is the one with the institutional capacity to use technology where it matters: in the title.
Saudi Arabia already has it. Europe is still asking for its turn to speak.
The final proof? The big Big Four have spent ten years billing blockchain consulting to the very notarial bodies and registries that later put the brakes on adoption at the “legal feasibility” stage.
They charge for the report. We pay for the inertia.
It is deliberate institutional design. Europe does not block because it does not know how to move forward; it blocks because it was designed not to move forward quickly.
by Antonio Tejeda Encinas President of Comite Euro Americano de Derecho Digital -CEA Digital Law
