One of the Trump Organization’s major overseas real estate partners is hoping to fund a branded hotel endeavor with cryptocurrency tokens.
Saudi luxury developer Dar Global is looking to fund its Trump International Hotel project in the Maldives by selling blockchain-based crypto tokens to U.S. investors, Reuters reported. The firm hopes to compile the majority of funding with tokens sold to retail investors.
“We would like to … tokenize 70 percent of that development fund to as many token holders as possible,” said CEO Ziad El Chaar. “The biggest crypto market and the biggest amount of investors are in the U.S.”
Dar Global is already in talks with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission about the idea, in addition to exploring options in other countries.
Dar Global has seven projects in the pipeline, including an 80-story tower in Dubai, a golf resort in Qatar and various hotels and homes in Saudi Arabia and Oman.
El Chaar brushed off scrutiny over Dar Global’s relationship with the president’s family firm under the Trump administration.
“Obviously, with the Trump brand, you have the politics involved, but from our side, this is not our domain,” El Chaar said.
The Maldives hotel is just one project the two companies have joined forces on. The Trump Organization was reported this week to be in negotiations to build a Trump-branded property at Diriyah, a historic town outside Riyadh that the kingdom is reinventing to the tune of $63 billion. Last month, senior executives tied to the development were detained by Saudi authorities as part of an anti-corruption investigation.
Elsewhere in the kingdom, the Trump Organization and Dar Global in September reached an agreement to build a $1 billion Trump Plaza development in Jeddah. It will include the Trump Organization’s second planned tower in the coastal city, following a $533 million Trump Tower expected to be completed in 2029.
The additional Jeddah project is slated to deliver offices, luxury apartments and townhouses on a 3.3 million-square-foot piece of land that Dar Global parent company Dar Al Arkan and its partners acquired earlier this year for nearly $1.2 billion. The Trump Plaza in Jeddah is described as part of a larger “Manhattan” development with a park inspired by New York’s Central Park for “one of the most ambitious developments” that Dar Global has pursued, El Chaar said in a statement.
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