When a rental car turns into a token and you’re like ‘what is happening?

It sounds like a joke, but it’s real: an Argentine startup turned rental cars into tokens so anyone can jump into the game of “owning a piece of a car that’s out there making money”

What happened?

A company called Mercado Cripto, led by Carlos Montenegro, already has over 162 users who bought tokens from five cars to be rented out in Argentina. iProUP+1

The mechanism: they purchase a new car (Callia model, equipped with CNG) so that someone can use it as a driver for a ride-sharing app. The profits are shared among those who hold the tokens. iProUP

Each tokenized car has a total value of about 25,000 USDT in one case, each token equals 1 USDT, and the expected annual return is around 10 percent. iProUP

And the craziest part: you can buy the token from anywhere in Latin America even if the car itself is in Argentina. iProUP

Why I like it

• Because it blends the real world (a car that runs, wears out, burns CNG) with the digital one (token, blockchain, wallet).

• Because it lets you think differently: you don’t have to buy the whole car — you can own a digital part of it.

• Because for those who see crypto as pure smoke, this brings it down to earth: something tangible that’s used, not just a “goes up tomorrow” promise.

• Because it’s happening in Argentina — which means something when you live in an economy where everything shakes.

A few clarifications (not because there’s any drama coming, but because what burns is also real)

• The yield is estimated — it depends on how many days the vehicle works, how many kilometers it runs, how much CNG it burns, and how many repairs it needs. (iProUP)

• As for regulations, notarial contracts, and responsibilities, each car has a detailed record, a notarized document, and a private wallet that the company doesn’t control. (iProUP)

• This isn’t investment advice or a magic formula — just a worthy example to share.

Where the bigger trend is heading

This isn’t just about tokenizing cars in Argentina. It’s part of a larger phenomenon: Real World Assets (RWA) are making a strong entry into the crypto and blockchain ecosystem. BeInCrypto+1

We might be standing at a crossroads:

either we keep believing that:

crypto = just coins and speculation

or we start understanding that:

crypto = transforming the real world, giving it new forms, opening access

And to me, this startup is clearly betting on the second.

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What I keep thinking about

• That a “rental car” is no longer just a local physical business — it can become a global digital product.

• That the limits for small investors (the ones who say “I don’t have a million to buy real estate”) keep shrinking.

• That the disruptive part isn’t only the technology itself, but how it reshapes the relationship between owner / user / participant. We could “be part” of a car that moves without ever putting the license plate on it.

• That the mix “Argentina + crypto + real world” has something special: risk, yes — but also the chance to think differently.

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📎 Sources

· iProUP – “He’s Argentine and created a platform that tokenizes cars and planes: how Mercado Cripto works.” iProUP+1

· BeInCrypto – on tokenization of luxury goods and RWAs. BeInCrypto

· Infobae – tokenization of real estate as a precedent. infobae

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