$200M Tokenized Water Infrastructure Planned For Southeast Asia
Blockchain infrastructure firm Global Neighborhood Network has announced a pilot to promote water treatment plants in Jakarta, with the aim of expanding to the rest of Southeast Asia with $200 million in tokenized assets over the next 12 months.
Real-world asset tokenization involves creating financial and other tangible assets on the blockchain to increase investment access and business opportunities.
The first pilot will target eight water treatment plants in Jakarta, aiming to raise up to $35 million to upgrade the facilities and expand the area's water network, he said in a statement Wednesday.
As part of the preparation process over the next 12 months, both organizations plan to test the rupee-stablecoin settlement rails in their regulated corridors and then expand to additional foreign exchange corridors.
Following the pilot in Jakarta, the companies are looking to scale the project to a total of $200 million in Southeast Asia.
Tokenization helps to solve financial gaps
Mas Witjaksono, chairman of Indonesia-based Globalia Infrastructure Fund, said the project “offers huge opportunities for growth as Indonesia has a number of major infrastructure projects and natural resources that can be tokenized.”
The funding gap for water infrastructure is widening in Southeast Asia, where long-term water investment will be more than $4 trillion by 2040, far exceeding current spending, the organizations say.
Some crypto execs have predicted that the tokenized real world asset (RWA) market will grow significantly in 2026, attracting foreign investment and capital formation in developing economies.
More than $21 billion in RWA is estimated to be on the chain by more than 629,528 holders as of Thursday, according to RWA.xyz.
Southeast Asia is already a crypto hotbed
Southeast Asia already has a high level of crypto adoption. In the Chainalysis crypto adoption index released in September, the APAC region, which includes Southeast Asia, was identified as the fastest-growing region in chain crypto activity, with a 69% year-over-year price increase.
Related: Plum CEO Advises RWA To Grow 3-5x By 2026 As It Outpaces Crypto Natives
In a subsequent report, Chinalysis pointed to Indonesia as the second largest value chain market with a 103 percent increase in the 12 months to June 2025.
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