In the flickering candlelight of a 17th century Parliament, a radical idea took root: what if the vast, untapped wealth of England’s land could be sliced into paper promises, traded like gold coins and forced upon merchants as legal tender? Almost three hundred and thirty years ago on April 27th, 1696, the National Land Bank Act (7 & 8 Will. III c. 31) became law, birthing the world’s first experiment in tokenized property with explicit legal tender status.
Prospectus of the National Land Bank 1696
Source: Bank of England Museum
Even amidst the chaos of the Nine Years’ War (between France against England, the Dutch and the Holy Roman Empire) with England also fighting the Irish and the Scots - all leading to a crippling coinage crisis - this audacious scheme aimed to turn feudal estates into liquid assets, funding the Crown whilst empowering gentry with credit. As the Act’s preamble declared in Section XXIX, “the Intent of incorporating the Subscribers as aforesaid is in order to enable them to lend Moneys on Securities of Lands at low Interest.” Today, as blockchain platforms digitize deeds and fractionalize skyscrapers, that forgotten Act feels eerily prescient a bold precursor to the $4 trillion tokenized real estate market projected for 2025. But was it genius or folly? And what lessons does it hold for our crypto-fuelled future?
The story begins in an England teetering on financial ruin - King William III’s war chest was empty; the Bank of England, a private company, freshly chartered in 1694 dominated by London merchants; and clipped silver coins had lost 30% of their value in the Great Recoinage of 1696. Enter the National Land Bank, a Whig-backed rival dreamed up by John Briscoe and Nicholas Barbon. The Act, buried in a sprawling bill on salt duties and earthenware taxes, authorised a corporation to raise £2.5 million, not in hard cash but through “Land-Bank Bills”- essentially tokenized slices of mortgaged freehold land, as outlined in Section X: “To authorise and appoint any Number of Persons to take and receive all such voluntary Subscriptions as shall be made on or before the First Day of August One thousand six hundred ninety six ... for and towards the raiseing and paying into the Receipt of Exchequer the said Su[m]m of Two Millions five hundred sixty four thousand Pounds.” Subscribers needed only £5 in coin per £100 share; the rest was secured by conveying land worth twice the value via statutory mortgages.
Source: TPX Property exchanges
These deeds vested legal title in the National Land Bank whilst letting owners retain possession a trust structure that prefigured modern special purpose vehicles, with provisions in Section XXX requiring “all Conveyances or Assignements of any Lands Interests or Estates ... shall be from time to time entred or registred in Register Book or Books of Entry.” The Bills, printed and assignable, similar to inland bills of exchange, were declared legal tender for all debts, repayable on demand from the National Land Bank’s pooled funds. Forgery? A hanging offense, as Section XXXV starkly warned: “the forgeing or counterfeiting the Co[m]mon Seale of the said Corporation ... shall be Felony without Benefitt of Clergy.” The Bank’s 1695 prospectus, “An Account of the Land-Bank”, captured the optimism: “SHEWING The Design and Manner of the Settlement. The Profits to the Subscribers. The Advantage to the Borrowers. The Conveniency to the Lenders”, promising that “it will be the Support of the Nobility and Gentry of England, and a Publick Good to the Whole Nation.”
It was tokenization ‘avant la lettre’: land, that immutable symbol of wealth, fragmented into bearer instruments circulating as currency. The National Land Bank could lend up to £500,000 annually on further mortgages, issuing “Bills of Credit”, charged directly on estates and redeemable with interest. As Section XXXI specified, these read: “The Governor and Company of the National Land Bank do hereby charge the Lands &c entred in Libro. A. N°: I. with Payment of Pounds to. A. B. &c for Payment whereof they oblige themselves and their Successors by these Presents.” And Section XXXIV ensured enforceability: “All or any Bills to be given out by the said Corporation under their Co[m]mon Seale payable to any certaine Person or the Bearer shall intitle the Bearer thereof ... to any Action of Debt against the said Corporation for the Recovery of the Moneys due thereon.” A public register ensured transparency, and double valuations buffered against market dips. This was required because the UK Land Registry was not established until 1863. In theory, it democratized finance, letting rural squires bypass City goldsmiths. Subscriptions opened in January 1696 at Grocer’s Hall, with fanfare from pamphleteers hailing it as a “publick good to the whole nation.”
Yet, by May the nation had fallen into utter destitution, almost all circulating coinage disappeared from the economy. The Bank of England suspend all redemption in gold and silver and interest payments halted. The recoinage hoarded specie, war jitters spooked investors and Bank of England lobbying wanted the competing Land Bank destroyed. Directors, including MPs such as Sir Thomas Littleton, couldn’t rally the gentry; mortgages proved bureaucratic nightmares with surveys by “indifferent freeholders” delaying deeds. By 1697, the venture dissolved, its assets liquidated and the Act’s powers lapsed. Parliament, chastened, extended the Bank of England’s charter in 1697 and, by 1708, banned unincorporated banking partnerships of six or more cementing the BoE’s monopoly and dooming land-credit schemes for centuries.
If the National Land Bank’s collapse seems a quaint footnote, its DNA pulses through today’s tokenized revolution. Fast-forward 330 years: the UK’s property market, valued at £8.7 trillion, is fracturing under digital hammers. Blockchain platforms now tokenize deeds, enabling fractional ownership from 1 pence. In 1696, paper bills represented land claims; now, smart contracts enforce them immutably on distributed ledgers. The parallels are striking. Just as Land-Bank Bills were legal tender, modern tokens comply with the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA), treating them as regulated stable coins or securities. Investors, from pension funds to retail investors, trade fractions globally echoing the Act’s vision of liquidity without losing possession, where lending terms in Section XXIX allowed “the said Governor and Company shall lend out the Su[m]m of Five hundred thousand Pounds per Annum att the least ... att Interest not exceeding Three Pounds ten Shillings per Centum per Annum.” Regulatory nods abound. The Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023 laid blockchain groundwork whilst the 2025 Data (Use and Access) Bill fast-tracks digital conveyancing. Deloitte’s April 2025 report forecasts tokenized private real estate funds hitting $1 trillion by 2035, with the UK capturing 8.5% penetration. “Fractional ownership democratises access”, notes TPX CEO, Antony Abell, in a September interview: “A nurse in Leeds can own a sliver of Mayfair, just as 1696 gentry eyed City loans.” Global standards are accelerating: July’s EIN Presswire highlighted compliant frameworks from ISO and ERC-3643, enabling cross-border trades. In Debut Infotech’s 2025 rankings, the UK joins Switzerland and Singapore as a top launchpad with XBTO’s use cases spotlighting real estate alongside tokenized treasuries. But echoes of 1696 warn of pitfalls. The Oxford Business Law Blog’s October 2025 piece, “The Tokenization Mirage”, skewers NFT real estate hype: volatility, illiquidity and unenforceability plague under-regulated tokens. “Like Briscoe’s Bills, many promise liquidity but deliver defaults”, warns author Prof. Sarah Chen.
To grasp the Land Bank’s enduring shadow, consider its architects’ words. John Briscoe, in his 1694 pamphlet, ‘A Discourse of the National Land-Bank’, railed against cash-hoarding: “The Land of England is the true Treasure thereof, and not the Money”, arguing that “by Mortgaging of Lands, the Proprietors thereof may have present Use of their Estates, without alienating the Inheritance.” This ethos unlocking “dead stock” for circulation fuels today’s platforms. As 2026 dawns, the true 330th anniversary tokenized property stands at a crossroads, blending 17th-century ambition with 21st-century tech. Proponents envision a tokenized real estate to excess $4 trillion by 2030, slashing transaction costs 70% via instant settlements. Imagine: no solicitors’ fees, no Land Registry queues - a Scottish crofter tokens her glen for solar farm stakes, or a Birmingham flat becomes 500 global shares, rented via AI oracles. Yet, sceptics invoke 1696’s ghost. The Land Bank’s failure stemmed from trust deficits gentry feared foreclosure, merchants shunned “land scrip” as inferior to BoE notes. Today, cybersecurity breaches (e.g., the August 2025 Ronin hack siphoning off $100 million in asset tokens) and regulatory silos echo that. Three centuries on, the 1696 Act reminds us: tokenizing property isn’t just finance; it’s sovereignty. It unlocked land’s latent value then as blockchain does now, risks and all. Will 2026’s tokens soar like Icarus, or ground a new financial order? History, ever cyclical, holds its breath...
This article first appeared in Digital Bytes (16th of December , 2025), a weekly newsletter by Jonny Fry of Team Blockchain.