bullish

Kevin

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The biggest buyers of Baltic forest are not crypto startups. In October 2025, Ingka Investments, the investment arm of IKEA’s largest retailer, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-20/ikea-investment-arm-strikes-record-forest-deal-in-latvia-estonia" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">agreed to buy</a> about 3778,000 acres (153,000 hectares) of land in Latvia and Estonia from Sweden’s Södra for €720 million (about $840 million).
Lauris Borodovskis, CEO of 3Pine Capital, is building a way for investors to <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/explained/what-is-tokenization-explained" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">own a piece of the same kind of land</a> through <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/tokenization" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">tokenization</a>.
In November, his company <a href="https://cms.law/en/lux/news-information/cms-luxembourg-advises-upwood-on-the-launch-of-a-forest-backed-tokenised-notes-issuance" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">launched</a> a €7.156 million ($8.3 million) issue of secured tokenized notes backed by Latvian forestry assets.
<blockquote>
 “We are basically giving access to forest as an asset class,” Borodovskis told TheStreet <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Roundtable</a> at <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/token2049" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Token2049</a> in Singapore.
</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/markets/jack-dorseys-block-jumps-22-places-on-the-roundtable-100" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Related: Jack Dorsey's Block jumps 22 places on the Roundtable 100</a>
<h2 id="the-investment-thesis">The investment thesis</h2>
Borodovskis said the return comes from two main sources; <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/opinion/hedge-timber-exposure-against-inflation-11725232" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">timber harvesting</a> and what he called land detachment.
3Pine buys forest directly from owners who, he said, mostly inherited it. Many of those properties mix farmland and forest. The company legally separates the two titles, sells the agricultural land to farmers and keeps the forest.
He said hunting licenses add a smaller stream, and expects carbon credits to also become a source of revenue, though he said that market has slowed.
<h2 id="why-latvia">Why Latvia</h2>
Forest covers <a href="https://eng.lsm.lv/article/economy/economy/latvias-forests-are-growing.a325107/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">about 52%</a> of Latvia, and roughly half of it is privately owned. Borodovskis put the number of private owners at about 115,000. Official estimates range from 110,000 to 135,000.
That splits the market in two. Institutions like Ingka buy large ready-made portfolios from other professionals, while thousands of small heirs sell one parcel at a time, often without the scale to harvest it themselves. Borodovskis said buying from those first-hand owners lets 3Pine pay 25% to 40% below market value, a discount the funds bidding against ecah other for big portfolios don’t get.
<h3 id="more-news">More news:</h3>
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</ul>
The trade is already happening without tokens: the average private holding in Latvia has been growing as small plots are bought up and combined.
Latvian forest is also much cheaper than surrounding nations. Borodovskis said it is usually about three to four times cheaper per hectare than in the Nordics. <a href="https://debitum.investments/blog/invest-where-the-real-economy-grows-forestry-in-latvia/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Industry estimates</a> put Latvian forestland at €3,400 to €4,600 per hectare ( $1,600 to $2,200 per acre), against €10,000 ($4,600 or more per acre) or more in Scandinavia.
The sector is massively important to the economy there. Forestry, wood processing and furniture <a href="https://investinlatvia.org/assets/upload/Forest_sector_2022.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">account for 6.5% of Latvia’s GDP and about 22% of its exports</a>.
3Pine has tokenized about 2,700 hectares (6,700 acres) so far, which Borodovskis said is “a very small part” of the market.
The pitch puts forest alongside the <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/innovation/ondo-introduces-the-ondo-network-to-power-its-trading-products" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Treasuries</a> and <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/innovation/6-billion-is-trying-to-get-out-of-private-credit-says-metagood-coo" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">private credit</a> that dominate <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/crypto/tag/real-world-assets" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">real-world assets (RWA)</a> on-chain. <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/investing/ikea-buys-romanian-baltic-forests-to-control-its-raw-materials-13239876" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">IKEA has already made the same bet</a> on Latvian forest at institutional scale.&nbsp;

IKEA is buying Latvian forest, and 3Pine Capital wants crypto investors in too

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