The man tokenizing USD 12 bn of property — with a team of four, and a crew of AI agents

For years, Piyush Gupta (LinkedIn) was focused on tokenizing real-world assets through Polytrade, a marketplace for tokenized assets. Then one of the largest US asset managers approached him with a bigger challenge: bringing bns of USD worth of real estate assets on-chain.

That became Integra, a layer-one blockchain purpose-built for real estate. The platform is working with asset managers and developers across the US and the UAE and says it has gathered more than USD 12 bn worth of assets in the pipeline. Its first USD 72 mn US property is expected to come on-chain following the launch of its mainnet later this year.

Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. This week, we spoke with Piyush Gupta (LinkedIn), CEO of Integra, about real estate tokenization, AI agents, why he built a dedicated blockchain for property, and how AI has reshaped his own workday. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

EnterpriseAM: For readers who may not be familiar with Integra, tell us what the company does.

Piyush Gupta (PG): Think of it as creating a supply chain for a single asset class on a single blockchain. I’ve been in the real-world assets space for almost six years now. We built a company called Polytrade, a tokenized marketplace, and last year we were approached by one of the largest asset managers in the US, Niket Capital, which manages around USD 4 bn in assets.

They wanted to tokenize their asset base, but we felt Polytrade as an app wasn’t doing justice to the whole proposition. We sat down with a few council members and asked: Why don’t we launch a layer-one blockchain purpose-built for real estate?

The more we thought about it, the more obvious the problem became. The tokenization space is highly fragmented. People are trying to do too many things on the same blockchain, making it difficult to bring together liquidity, tokenization companies, developers, asset managers, and investors in one place and seamlessly transact with one another.

E: Integra says it has gathered more than USD 12 bn worth of assets across the US and the UAE. How much of that is actually live on-chain today?

PG: The assets will start coming on-chain once we go live on the mainnet. Right now, we’re still on testnet, where we’ve already processed over 9 mn transactions.

We didn’t expect that level of transaction volume, but it’s been a great way to stress-test both the blockchain and the infrastructure behind it. We’re very happy with the results so far and will likely continue running the testnet for another month or so.

In the meantime, our first US asset — a property worth around USD 72 mn — is receiving final lender approvals and should be coming on-chain shortly.

E: How does the investment climate differ between the US and the UAE?

PG: The US assets are more mature. These are existing properties with established investor bases, and the asset manager has been managing them for almost ten years. Bringing them on-chain is about creating secondary liquidity for those existing investors.

The UAE market is a little different. We’re working with a DIFC-based real estate fund managing around USD 300 mn that acquires residential buildings with strong cashflow yields and is looking to tokenize its fund units. We’re also working with a developer whose portfolio is largely off-plan. Those assets require additional regulatory approvals before tokenization can happen, so we’re working with regulators to explore how investors and retail participants can access off-plan real estate through tokenization.

E: A major part of your vision involves AI. How do you see AI agents participating in real estate transactions?

PG:The last four to six months have completely changed the way businesses operate. From a team of almost 25 people, today we are a team of four. AI has literally taken over everything. Our blockchain is being managed and operated by AI with zero human interference. Even our motto has changed. Integra is no longer just a blockchain — it’s an AI-powered blockchain.

We’re now building two businesses. One is asset tokenization, and the other is providing autonomous AI solutions to real estate companies. As we speak, we’re building around 18 AI automation products for a US client. Real estate businesses are operationally heavy, with a lot of manual and repetitive work that can now be automated through AI.

When it comes to AI agents negotiating transactions, I think we’re still too early to give them that level of authority on behalf of users. What they can do is reach a reasonably conclusive outcome before humans intervene. Agents can go out into the market, screen properties, negotiate within predefined limits, and come back with the best available outcome. The human then decides whether to proceed. That’s where the real fun happens.

E: Why do you think real estate tokenization continues to attract so much attention?

PG:I still think we’re far from true adoption. Last year, we were very encouraged when the Dubai Land Department launched its pilot around tokenized title deeds. To my knowledge, no country had attempted something like that before.

What motivates us is the scale of the market potential. Almost 75% of global wealth sits in real estate, yet it’s one of the oldest and slowest-moving asset classes. Why should it remain archaic? If somebody in the US wants to participate in a UAE asset, they should be able to do that seamlessly.

E: Let's talk about your morning routine. What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?

PG:Life has changed completely over the last four months. Earlier, you’d wake up, chase your team, get updates from marketing and development, ask how many calls were booked, and try to figure out what was happening across the business. We used to start the day stressed.

Today, we don’t do morning calls anymore. There are dashboards giving us live updates on everything happening across the network, so I wake up, look at the dashboards, and decide where I need to focus my energy. If everything is running smoothly, we start building new products. Thanks to AI and the tools available today, products that used to take months can now be built in weeks. The day has become much smoother and much lighter. It allows us to focus on specific areas instead of spreading our energy everywhere.

E: And after work?

PG:Recent geopolitical events have made me realize the value of life and family. Everything else is secondary. From around 5pm or 6pm onward, I try to reduce my calls so I can spend quality time with my kids after they come home from school. I find that more rejuvenating than anything else.

Piyush's favorites

What he’s reading: The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. It’s one of my favorite books because it teaches the basics of how money operates.

What he watches: Thrillers. Anything that’s a thriller is my go-to choice.

Best advice he’s received: “Don't try to sell diamonds to somebody who doesn’t understand diamonds.” It came from a conversation about tokenizing diamonds. The lesson was simple: don’t try to sell an asset to people who aren’t your buyers. Instead, bring the entire supply chain on-chain and solve the industry’s core problems.