Bed Bath & Beyond has agreed to acquire Tokens.com as part of a strategic shift into real estate finance and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), aiming to blend traditional financial products with blockchain infrastructure.
Under the announced deal, Tokens.com — a firm that builds blockchain-focused financial infrastructure — will become a wholly owned subsidiary. The company plans to use Tokens.com to develop a platform for real estate finance, tokenized securities and other RWAs, integrating blockchain technology with regulated financial services. Bed Bath & Beyond already holds strategic stakes in blockchain companies including tZERO and GrainChain and expects to leverage existing regulatory and operational resources across its blockchain businesses.
The envisaged platform is meant to bring traditional and tokenized assets together in a single interface where users can view ownership data, estimated valuations and liquidity options. It will support issuer-led tokenization, asset-backed lending and access to cryptocurrencies. Capital-markets functions such as tokenization, custody and trading are expected to be handled by tZERO, while mortgage and home-equity products are planned to be provided through partners like Figure Technologies.
According to the company, borrowers using the platform could receive financing in fiat or in cryptocurrencies, including stablecoins. The platform is targeted to be operational by mid-2026, subject to customary closing conditions.
Background: Bed Bath & Beyond filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April 2023 after years of declining sales and began liquidating its U.S. stores. The Bed Bath & Beyond brand and intellectual property were purchased in a 2023 bankruptcy auction by Overstock, which later rebranded as Beyond Inc. and relaunched Bed Bath & Beyond as an online-focused business.
This move into tokenized RWAs mirrors a broader industry trend toward onchain financial infrastructure. Recent examples include Telegram enabling access to around 60 tokenized U.S. stocks via a partnership with Backed and Kraken. ETHZilla, a company that repositioned itself as an Ethereum treasury business, has pursued RWA tokenization through onchain credit deals, acquiring stakes in Karus to issue tokenized auto-loan portfolios and in digital housing lender Zippy to bring manufactured-home loans onchain. Mubadala Capital has also indicated work with Kaio to explore tokenizing private-market investment strategies.
Market data from RWA.xyz shows the tokenized real-world asset market has grown rapidly — roughly $24.2 billion in distributed value, up from about $6.1 billion a year earlier, an increase of nearly 300% year-over-year.
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