Source: alpaca.markets
Introduction
In recent years, the investment landscape has undergone a significant transformation as digital assets and infrastructure have rapidly developed. With this transformation has come a shift towards disintermediation and democratization in the investment industry, as well as an increase in transparency and cost efficiency.
At the forefront of this digital revolution is asset tokenization, which is transforming everything from trading and pricing to the liquidity of securities. Tokenization has implications for all stakeholders in the industry, including asset managers, who are being challenged to build sustainable solutions in a collaborative environment. This article will explore the disruptive power of asset tokenization and its potential to reshape the investment industry as we know it.
Key Terms
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) — a system of databases that are decentralized and distributed across a network of nodes or computers. The main purpose of DLTs is to enable secure and transparent record-keeping without the need for a central authority or intermediary. DLTs can take many forms, and they can be public or private, permissioned or permissionless.
Blockchain — a specific type of DLT that uses a chain of blocks to record and store data. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, which creates an unbreakable chain of data. This makes the blockchain an immutable, tamper-proof ledger that can be used for a variety of applications, such as cryptocurrency transactions, supply chain management, and voting systems.
Tokenization — the process of issuing a token that represents an asset. A token acts as a digital certificate of authenticity, enabled by DLT.
Fractionalization — refers to the process of dividing an asset into smaller units or tokens that can be owned by multiple individuals.
The Rise of Asset Tokenization
Tokenization has the potential to revolutionize financial markets by enabling new business models and creating new asset classes due to its ability to enhance asset liquidity and tradability, as well as create new product structures with smart contracts governing asset management.
One of the main advantages of tokenization is its ability to improve the liquidity of illiquid assets such as real estate or infrastructure. By fractionalizing assets into tokens, investors can purchase smaller portions of the asset, which makes it more accessible and tradable. This enhances the liquidity of the asset and potentially increases its overall value.
Tokenization also has the potential to lower transaction costs and provide greater transparency, as all transactions are recorded on the blockchain and can be viewed in real-time. This can increase market efficiency and reduce the risk of fraud and errors.
As of October 2021, a variety of players in tokenization have started to emerge, as indicated by a snapshot below:
Source: Boston Consulting Group report
Benefits of Asset Tokenization
Asset tokenization using on-chain technology provides several advantages.
Affordability: it allows investments in fractional asset values of high-ticket instruments, making it more affordable for most investors.
Borderless: it enables the listing of previously illiquid assets subject to local regulations in each jurisdiction, providing borderless accessibility and seamless trading in the secondary market.
Transparency: it unlocks liquidity and enhances flexibility by enabling the trading of assets before maturity, enforces immutable transparency and accountability, and creates a shared ledger on distributed P2P network nodes.
Efficiency: it streamlines transaction efficiency by enabling higher transaction speeds at lower prices, reducing friction, and gaining from asset servicing.
Price discovery: it ensures better price discovery of illiquid assets by disintermediating the process and reducing ‘rent-seeking’ by intermediaries.
Overall, asset tokenization offers significant advancement in the financial industry, benefiting investors, asset owners, and regulators.
How Does Asset Tokenization Work?
Asset tokenization is a process by which traditional assets, such as real estate, art, or commodities, are converted into digital tokens that can be traded on a blockchain. This process involves collecting information about the asset, such as its ownership, value, and other relevant details, and formalizing it into a digital format.
Once this information is collected, it’s translated into code and represented as metadata on a digital token. This token can be accessed via the blockchain, allowing for transparency into the asset’s economic value and ownership. This process of formalizing an asset into a digital token is known as tokenization.
There have been numerous proposals attempting to create a DeFi (decentralized finance) standard for asset tokenization, which would create a uniform process for creating and trading digital tokens representing different types of assets.
Source: research.binance.com
This standardization would help to increase liquidity and transparency in the market, making it easier for investors to buy and sell tokenized assets.
Landscape Of Assets Being Tokenized
The trend of tokenizing assets is growing rapidly, and real estate is currently the most popular asset being tokenized. Climate-related underlyings such as carbon credits and public bond/stock underlyings are also frequently tokenized. Emerging market credit, mainly corporate debt, is another type of asset being tokenized. The industry map of RWA protocols illustrates this trend, segmented by the type of underlying they tokenize.
Source: research.binance.com
The Market Potential For Asset Tokenization
Source: Boston Consulting Group report
A report by Boston Consulting Group projects that the global market for tokenizing illiquid assets will reach $16 trillion by 2030.
Illiquid Assets
Illiquid assets are investments that cannot be easily converted to cash or traded on the open market. A large portion of the world’s wealth is invested in illiquid assets. In a 1997 survey in the US, it was found that over 56% of assets held by taxpayers with a net-worth between $600,000 and $1 million were illiquid (Messari, 2022).
Illiquid assets encompass a range of investments, including real estate (such as home equity), natural resources, land, certain commodities, public infrastructure such as mines and ports, fine art, computing infrastructure, and private equity. Additionally, there are other asset classes that are accessible only to a limited group of wealthy investors and institutions due to high ticket size constraints, such as pre-IPO stocks, hedge funds, infrastructure projects, alternate investment instruments, and private credit.
Asset Tokenization Today — The Foundations Of Growth
The tokenization of assets on the blockchain is becoming increasingly significant, with the global market size exceeding $2.3 billion in 2021. The market is expected to grow to $5.6 billion by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 19.0% throughout the forecast period, according to the Blockchain Council (2022).
Source: deloitte.com — Digital Asset Survey 2021
In a survey conducted by Deloitte between May and July 2021, 25 financial services industry organizations across EMEA were involved, with the majority of respondents (76%) seeing the tokenization of securities as a significant long-term opportunity. The survey targeted C-suite or upper management, innovation leads, public policy representatives, and owner/partners of global banks, digital asset platforms, and fintechs, through one-to-one interviews with leading organizations.
We have identified several segments that exhibit robust potential for the future growth of asset tokenization. Our analysis has focused closely on the following areas in order to uncover the underlying factors that can drive such growth.
NFTs
Source: researchandmarkets.com
The sale of NFTs reached about $25 billion across tokenized games, art and more (Reuters, 2022). This reflects a market embracing tokenization as a means to monetize assets and digital tokens, and this is only the beginning in terms of growth potential. The global NFT market size is expected to grow from $3 billion in 2022 to $13.6 billion by 2027, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 35.0% from 2022 to 2027.
Real Estate
Tokenization of real estate has been a widely discussed topic in the real estate market, with many conversations taking place both publicly and privately.
Source: hcob-bank.de
A recent report by Dr. De la Rubia, Dr. Sandner, and PhD Gross analyzed the current state of tokenization in the real estate industry. The study focused on the business practices of approximately 41 companies from different countries that are already implementing real estate tokenization.
The small number of companies examined in the report highlights the fact that the tokenized real estate market is still in its early stages of development. It was also found that the number of companies active in this market is generally quite low. Furthermore, the report showed that Ethereum is the most commonly used blockchain technology among the companies surveyed, accounting for almost two-thirds of all cases where blockchain technology is utilized.
Private Equity Investments
Private assets are particularly attractive due to illiquidity and high capital investment requirements. Through fractionalization, tokenization can enable access to these assets for a much wider range of investors.
Private equity has outperformed the S&P 500 by 70% over the past 20 years, but that performance has mostly been enjoyed by major institutions, sovereign wealth funds and university endowments (McKinsey Global Private Markets Review, 2022).
ADDX
Institutions such as Singapore’s ADDX, a blockchain-based technology firm is providing accredited investors with access to private equity funds at sizes that would normally be considered too small for investors, as little as $10,000.
Source: addx.co
ADDX is a Singaporean investment platform that uses a private Ethereum blockchain and smart contract technology to fractionalize private market investments. Regulated by the central bank of Singapore, it has gained support from leading financial players in the region. Over 2,000 people from 39 countries have already joined the platform, indicating a demand for secure, trustworthy, and accessible investment opportunities. Despite the current market uncertainty, the exchange expects to record $1 billion by 2023.
Securitize Platform
Source: hsecuritize.io
Securitize, a company that leverages tokenization to provide more investors access to private market assets, has partnered with Hamilton Lane, a private markets investment firm with over $824 billion in assets under management. The partnership allowed Hamilton Lane to tokenize its flagship $2.1 billion Equity Opportunities Fund V on Ethereum’s layer-2 network Polygon, significantly increasing investor access to this historically high-performing asset class.
By tokenizing the fund, Hamilton Lane has been able to lower the minimum required investment from an average of $5 million to just $20,000, making it accessible to individual investors who were previously unable to invest. The new tokenized fund will be available through a Securitize feeder fund on Polygon.
Securitize brings together businesses seeking to raise capital and investors seeking potential returns found in the private markets, with over 1.2 million investors and 3,000 businesses already connected. The company is an SEC-registered stock transfer agent, broker-dealer, alternative trading system, and registered investment advisor, as well as a member of FINRA and SIPC.
Credit Marketplace in Emerging Economies
Asset tokenization offers significant benefits to emerging market economies, especially when it comes to decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. One of the best examples of this trend is Goldfinch, a non-custodial lending protocol built on Ethereum that offers overcollateralized loans to verified real-world companies.
Source: goldfinch.finance
As shown below, most of the loans taken out on the asset-backed private credit protocol Goldfinch come from emerging market economies.
Source: research.binance.com
One of the key benefits of asset tokenization is increased access to credit for businesses and individuals who might otherwise struggle to access traditional financial markets or stable stores of value in their native fiat currency.
This is especially true in emerging market economies where local currencies are often subject to frequent devaluation. By borrowing in cryptocurrency or stablecoins, businesses and institutions can benefit from greater stability and predictability than they might find through traditional banks or financial institutions.
Bonds & Liquid Markets
The tokenization of bonds and more liquid assets is also starting to gain traction.
In September 2019, Banco Santander issued the first end-to-end blockchain bond on the Ethereum blockchain.
In 2020, Northern Trust, with $1.5 trillion in assets under management and $15.7 trillion in assets under custody and BondEvalue completed the first fractionalized bond on Hyperledger’s permissioned blockchain, known as BondbloX, in Singapore. BondbloX is a pioneering bond exchange that enables trading of traditional $200,000 bonds in $1,000 denominations.
On 27 April 2021, the European Investment Bank launched a digital bond issuance on the Ethereum blockchain, deploying this distributed ledger technology for the registration and settlement of digital bonds, in collaboration with Goldman Sachs, Santander and Societe Generale.
In April 2021, HSBC Singapore and Marketnode, the joint venture between Singapore Exchange and Temasek, successfully completed 10 digital bond issuances, including a S$1 billion perpetual securities issue by Singtel Group Treasury. Combined, the total ‘bond notional’ that has been successfully completed on Marketnode’s platform now stands at over S$2 billion — the largest volume of digital bonds issued on an exchange-operated network in Asia. Marketnode is looking to re-invent the way traditional financial instruments are originated, traded, booked, and serviced with the use of public blockchains, such as Ethereum and Polygon.
Source: marketnode.com
In September 2022, Japanese department store chain Marui issued 120 million yen blockchain-based corporate bonds direct to its customers, sidestepping intermediaries.
In July 2022, BNP Paribas issues tokenized bond for EDF on public Ethereum blockchain.
In January 2023, ABN Amro announced it issued a €450,000 bond on a public Stellar blockchain and City of Lugano issues CHF 100m blockchain bond on SDX, which uses a permissioned DLT.
In February 2023, Siemens issues €60m digital bond on public Polygon, an Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain and the government of Hong Kong issued $100 million tokenized green bonds on Goldman Sachs’ tokenization protocol GS DAP which uses a private blockchain network.
Decentralized Tokenized Corporate Bonds
Ondo Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, has introduced three new investment products aimed at allowing stablecoin holders worldwide to directly invest in bonds and U.S. Treasuries.
Source: ondo.finance
These products include the OUSG fund, which invests in short-term government Treasuries and offers an annual return of 4.2%, the OSTB fund, which invests in short-term bonds and delivers an annual return of 5.45%, and the OYHG fund, which invests in high-yield corporate bonds and pays an annual interest of 8% to depositors.
The fees for these products are currently set at 0.15%. Ondo Finance predicts that these regulated products could potentially attract over $100 billion worth of stablecoins that are currently not generating any returns for their holders.
Tokenizing Green Bonds On Blockchain
Green bonds are fixed-income debt securities similar to conventional bonds, but the funding raised from the bond’s issuance is, in principle, directed towards environmental sustainability.
Source: imf.org — Aug 2022 report
Green bonds are a crucial tool for addressing the challenge of climate change, which is one of the most significant economic and financial policy issues that IMF members face in the coming decades. To address this challenge, significant global investments are required, with estimates ranging from $3 trillion to $6 trillion per year until 2050.
Green bonds have quickly become the mainstream sustainable finance instrument in the market. Since the first green bond was issued in 2007 by the European Investment Bank, the green bond market has grown exponentially, with cumulative issuance exceeding US$1.6 trillion. In 2021, green bond issuance grew by 75% compared to the previous year, surpassing US$500 billion.
In 2021, Vasakronan AB, a Stockholm-based real estate company, made history by issuing EUR 50 million bond on the blockchain. This achievement demonstrated the potential for blockchain technology to revolutionize the way financial transactions are conducted, particularly in the realm of green finance.
As the world becomes increasingly focused on sustainable development and environmental preservation, the use of blockchain technology to facilitate environmentally friendly financial transactions is expected to become more common. One such initiate is called Project Genesis.
Project Genesis
Source: bis.org
Project Genesis is a collaborative effort between several organizations, including the BIS Innovation Hub Hong Kong Centre, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, and the UN Climate Change Global Innovation Hub. The initiative aims to utilize blockchain, smart contracts, and IoT to create two prototypes that digitally track, deliver, and transfer mitigation outcome interests (MOIs) appended to green bonds.
Investors can use MOIs to buy and sell the positive results of environmentally friendly projects. In the Paris Agreement, “mitigation outcomes” refer to reducing greenhouse gas emissions or removing carbon dioxide through environmental projects. Currently, carbon credits are only given out as a reward for completing “green” bond projects. With a mitigation outcome interest, issuers can borrow money using the carbon credits as collateral before the project is completed, which means the money can be used to fund the project in advance.
By tokenizing green bonds, Project Genesis aims to enable real-time tracking of environmental outputs and address issues of greenwashing and additionality in the green bond market. Through a proof-of-concept on the tokenization of retail green bonds using both public and permissioned blockchains, Project Genesis 2.0 seeks to enhance the transparency, objectivity, and environmental integrity of the green bond market.
Tokenization of Agricultural Commodities
Source: agrotoken.com
Agrotoken is a tokenization infrastructure platform for agricultural commodities that transforms grains into digital assets that can be saved or exchanged for other assets, supplies, or services.
These assets, known as Agrotokens, enable commercial and financial transactions that are backed by the grains themselves, with their value being directly linked to the price of soybeans, corn, and wheat. To verify the asset backing, a Proof of Grain Reserve is implemented, wherein major exporters validate the existence of the grain and issue asset-backed tokens accordingly. As grain is removed from storage, the equivalent amount of tokens is burned.
Recently, Santander Argentina has collaborated with Agrotoken to provide loans against stablecoins on the public blockchain that are backed by agricultural commodities, such as soya, corn, and wheat. Currently, the platform uses three blockchains, Ethereum, Polygon and Algorand.
MakerDAO — Decentralized Real World Assets
MakerDAO is an Ethereum blockchain-based decentralized global reserve bank that enables borrowers to deposit collateral assets into “vaults” to acquire debt in DAI stablecoin. These vaults function as smart contracts holding the borrower’s Ethereum-based collateral until the borrowed DAI is repaid.
The borrower maintains control over their collateral as long as its value remains above a specified threshold. However, if its value decreases and becomes undercollateralized, the vaults liquidate the collateral through an auction process to repay the loan in a trustless manner.
MakerDAO’s governance DAO determines the collateral types that borrowers can use. In 2020, MakerDAO’s governance system voted to permit borrowers to post tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) as collateral to vaults. Today, MakerDAO’s tokenized asset vaults are valued at over $680M and generate annual revenue of $23M for MakerDAO.
Source: Dune Analytics (@SebVentures & @Steakhouse) & Binance Research
Role Of Banks In Tokenized World
Source: HSBC, Citi, Goldman Sachs, DekaBank, Nothern Trust
Several major banks, including HSBC, Northern Trust, DekaBank, CitiBank, and Goldman Sachs, are advancing their efforts in digital asset initiatives.
Northern Trust has combined its digital asset team with its securities innovation team and is a shareholder in UK-regulated custodian Zodia Custody. HSBC has launched its bond issuance platform, HSBC Orion, and participated in several digital bond issuances with Marketnode in Singapore.
DekaBank has founded SWIAT to bring together global financial institutions on a shared digital asset platform. Citibank is supporting a similar initiative called the Regulatory Liability Network (RLN), while Goldman Sachs has taken part in experiments on issuing blockchain green bonds.
Main Challenge — Regulatory Clarity
In most countries today, there is a lack of clear regulation to govern the tokenization and securitization of real world assets. Only a few countries such as Switzerland (which recognizes digital assets as bearer assets) and France (which has adopted the CAST Framework, a hybrid between using the underlying blockchain as a settlement while keeping an off-chain register), have meaningful regulation that clarifies how a protocol should bring a real world asset to the blockchain.
Source: BCGroup report — Global Legal Insights, Clifford Chance report, Charlton Quantum report
Increasing regulatory scrutiny, geographical variance and associated uncertainty in governance could lengthen runway for scaling tokenization across borders. Further regulatory clarity will facilitate continued development and innovation in the space.
Summary
Asset tokenization on the blockchain is no longer perceived just as a temporary solution but a revolutionary idea that holds the potential to transform entire industries.
This innovative concept enables the representation of assets as digital tokens on the blockchain, which offers increased transparency, accessibility, and security. The use of smart contracts also allows for the automation of complex financial transactions and reduces the need for intermediaries.
Furthermore, asset tokenization has the potential to democratize investment opportunities, making it easier for individuals to participate in markets that were previously only accessible to high net worth individuals and institutional investors. It also offers increased liquidity and flexibility, as digital tokens can be traded on secondary markets 24/7.
Asset tokenization can be applied to a vast array of assets, including real estate, artwork, commodities, and even intellectual property. It offers a more efficient way to manage and trade assets, reducing transaction costs and improving the overall efficiency of markets.
Overall, the potential benefits of asset tokenization on the blockchain have led many to believe that it has a bright future and will continue to gain popularity in the years to come.
DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute any form of advice or recommendation by Wheatstones, and is not intended to be relied upon by users in making (or refraining from making) any investment decisions.