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Anisa Plepi and Peter Schendner posted a paper that proposes a framework for aggregating and categorizing viewpoints on fundamental issues concerning tokenization and assessing the causal effects of tokenization on market outcomes, using bonds as an example. The framework starts with a taxonomy of bond tokenization use cases according to the tokenization model, which is fed into a causal model to assess how would the outcomes, characterizing its lifecycle processes change if a bond had been tokenized instead of using the traditional infrastructure. Or alternatively, how would the outcomes of interest change if a bond had been exchanged in the traditional infrastructure instead of being tokenized? The paper then proposes an outcomes matrix to estimate the effects of tokenization on particular outcomes for which there are 25 metrics. The framework then conceptualizes the Swiss National Bank (SNB) Project Helvetia tokenization approach and evaluate its effects on efficiency and liquidity.

In recent years, blockchain-based tokenization has succeeded in making real estate much efficient, accessible, and affordable to the investors. And many experts believe that tokenization is the key to transform the industry into the next level. If you're a property owner, or an investor looking for an opportunity to invest in real estate, this article will jot down the 3 W's of tokenization of real estate, i.e what is tokenization? Why should you tokenize? and where to tokenize your real estate? So let's go ahead and find out.

The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of New York (NY Fed) published an article that explains what tokenization is and how it works, and looks at how past innovation in financial markets might offer lessons for the future. Multiple successful experiments show efficiencies in a completely tokenized world-where money and securities are all tokenized and settlement can be automated and synchronized with smart contracts. Change takes time, and there may be a period of years where tokenized money would need to interact with traditional securities, or vice versa. As an example, the article points to the Swiss National Bank (SNB) Project Helvetia which initially tried to link the existing payment system to a tokenized securities system, but found that without tokenized cash operational burdens were added, not reduced. Hence, when Helvetia went live, it did so with wholesale CBDC.

"The recent proposal for reversible Ethereum transactions is one of the latest additions to this conversation. Stanford researchers proposed that there could be a reversible version of the common token standards ERC-20 and ERC-721, whereby a token creator could choose to configure their token to follow this standard. The idea put forward was that transfers of such a token should be reversible (if a group of arbitrators authorizes the reversal, and as long as it happens within a certain "grace period"). It seems the primary motivation of this proposal is to protect users from themselves. We all know that one wrong digit can send tokens and crypto into the abyss. If a novice user (or indeed, at times, a more au fait crypto enthusiast) mistakenly transfers their tokens to the wrong address, through this proposed update, they could appeal the error to arbitrators and potentially get their tokens back. "

The BIS published a primer on tokenization and its key elements. Tokenization can reap gains through transaction automation and new types of asset transfer, but it raises economic, legal and technical issues. These challenges define a "tokenization continuum" that represents the trade-offs involved in the tokenization of different kinds of traditional assets. The tokenization continuum suggests that where tokenisation is easiest, per-unit gains are likely to be modest. Efforts that concentrate initially on identifying the assets that are most suitable for tokenization may yield the largest benefits, especially when the asset is traded in large volumes.

The TTF is a Composition Framework. You can use the framework to decompose existing Tokens to identify its parts and if they don't exist in the TTF, you add them. You also use the TTF to define a new token by building as much of the token from the parts that are in the TTF and if you find something missing or could be improved, you add or update it. The more times this process is done makes the TTF better. The more industries and organizations use the TTF it becomes cross industry allowing tokens to be designed to work together. Like Insurance and Finance for documents tokens like a Title or Invoice."

Amazon customers in 12 countries will have their stored MasterCard card credentials tokenized. By replacing a consumer's physical card number with a token, payment information is unique to each individual transaction and can be used only by the merchant that requested it. The Mastercard Digital Enablement Service (MDES) tokenization technology keeps cards seamlessly up to date, because network tokens do not expire. When consumers receive a new physical card from their bank, their credentials are automatically updated. https://www.finextra.com/pressarticle/82935/amazon-joins-mastercard-tokenization-initiative

Citibank launched two "Citi Token Services" digital asset solutions that target institutions. One is a pilot for blockchain-based tokenized deposits, enabling organizations to move money between Citi branches worldwide and 24/7. The other is a trade application that uses smart contracts to trigger instant payments using tokenized deposits. Citi Token Services is separate, but complements the Citibank-founded Regulated Liability Network (RLN), a multi bank collaboration for digital assets, tokenized deposits and CBDCs. https://www.citigroup.com/global/news/press-release/2023/citi-develops-new-digital-asset-capabilities-for-institutional-clients

"This paper examines the financial stability risks associated with tokenized cash, a subset of stablecoins fully reserved with cash and cash equivalents. Using a combination of on-chain data together with uniquely collected wallet address labels, we construct empirical measures of liquidity ratios and run off rates on the largest cash token and characterize its users and their behavior. The overall circulation of tokenized cash is largely insulated from crypto price movements, though price changes correlate with re-balancing between smart contracts and private wallets. A liquidity ratio calculation, similar in concept to Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR), indicates that tokenized cash has at least two times the amount of High-Quality Liquid Assets (HQLA) when compared to the worst observed gross outflow over 30-day ahead periods. We discuss the implications of tokenized cash on safe asset creation, credit supply, and monetary policy transmission. The adoption of tokenized cash can reduce moral hazard risks from public guarantees and expand credit provision through market-based lending enabled by smart contracts."

"The UTXO design of Bitcoin exhibits partially characteristics of a token-based system and partially characteristics of an account-based system. A discussion on the difficulty to implement the economic notion of tokens in the digital domain, along with an exposition of the design of UTXO, is given in order to discuss why UTXO-based systems should be viewed as account-based according to the classical economic notion. Besides, a detailed comparison between UTXO-based systems and account-based systems is presented. Using the data structure of the system state representation as the defining feature to distinguish digital token-based and account-based systems is therefore suggested. This extended definition of token-based systems covers both physical and digital tokens while neatly distinguishing token-based and account-based systems."

"This paper examines the financial stability risks associated with tokenized cash, a subset of stablecoins fully reserved with cash and cash equivalents. Using a combination of on-chain data together with uniquely collected wallet address labels, we construct empirical measures of liquidity ratios and run off rates on the largest cash token and characterize its users and their behavior. The overall circulation of tokenized cash is largely insulated from crypto price movements, though price changes correlate with re-balancing between smart contracts and private wallets. A liquidity ratio calculation, similar in concept to Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR), indicates that tokenized cash has at least two times the amount of High-Quality Liquid Assets (HQLA) when compared to the worst observed gross outflow over 30-day ahead periods. We discuss the implications of tokenized cash on safe asset creation, credit supply, and monetary policy transmission. The adoption of tokenized cash can reduce moral hazard risks from public guarantees and expand credit provision through market-based lending enabled by smart contracts. "

Fnality sees the new Bank of England omnibus accounts as supportive of the opportunity to use tokenized cash assets on next generation payment systems, enabling on-chain wholesale exchange of value. Fnality uses an Etheruem-based permissioned blockchain developed by Clearmatics, that will run on chain payment systems in multiple currencies with a regulated subsidiary in each jurisdiction. When a bank wants to use Fnality tokens to make a payment, it transfers money from its central bank account to the Fnality omnibus account, which then tokenizes it. The bank then uses the tokens to make a payment, and the recipient bank can then opt to convert the received tokens back to central bank money and have it transferred to its own central bank account. Or it could use the tokens for further payments.

The OECD published a paper on asset tokenization; the digital representation of real (physical) assets on distributed ledgers, or the issuance of traditional asset classes in tokenized form. It examines the benefits of tokenization and the challenges to its wider adoption, and the potential disruptive effect on trading, liquidity, pricing, clearing and settlement. It also highlights the increased importance of a trusted and credible central authority in a tokenized environment (such as a custodian), and sheds light to the possible necessity for a tokenized form of central bank digital currency or stablecoin for the payment leg of security settlement on DLT-based trading venues.

This Fed paper reviews how the cryptocurrency community has approached the concepts of tokens and tokenization, and discusses "tokens" in the context of CBDC. By highlighting how the terms "tokens" and "accounts" are used by the cryptocurrency community and the central banking community, this note seeks to inventory the subtly and sometimes obviously different ways these common terms are being used by different people to reference different concepts. Misalignment of this ambiguous terminology could create issues for legal frameworks and oversight regimes for digital currencies and so-called tokenized financial markets.

A paper by Robeco's Laurens Swinkels examined the financial and economic consequences of tokenizing 58 residential rental properties in the US, particularly those in Detroit. Tokenization aims at fragmented ownership. He found that the residential properties examined have 254 owners on average. Investors with a greater than $5,000 investment in real estate tokens, diversified their real estate ownership across properties within and across the cities. Property ownership changed about once yearly, with more changes for properties on decentralized exchanges. He reported that real estate token prices moved according to the house price index; hence, investing in real estate tokens provided economic exposure to residential house prices.

"In this paper, we analyze various Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocols in terms of their token distributions. We propose an iterative mapping process that allows us to split aggregate token holdings from custodial and escrow contracts and assign them to their economic beneficiaries. This method accounts for liquidity-, lending-, and staking-pools, as well as token wrappers, and can be used to break down token holdings, even for high nesting levels. We compute individual address balances for several snapshots and analyze intertemporal distribution changes. In addition, we study reallocation and protocol usage data, and propose a proxy for measuring token dependencies and ecosystem integration. The paper offers new insights on DeFi interoperability as well as token ownership distribution and may serve as a foundation for further research."

Wyoming's governor has signed SF 127 enacting the Wyoming Stable Token Act, creating the Wyoming stable token commission, and authorizing the issuance of stable tokens in the state. Under the Act, a Wyoming stable token is "a virtual currency representative of and redeemable for one United States dollar held in trust by the state of Wyoming" that may only be issued in exchange for a USD. The Act also outlines criteria relating to liability limitations and requires that the commission issue at least one Wyoming stable token no later than December 31, 2023.

Visa published a report on its tokenized deposit trial with HSBC and Hang Seng Bank, which involved (i) settling high value real estate transaction and (ii) settling Visa card payments. In Hong Kong there are restrictions on faster payment amounts, so the real estate transaction supported a high value instant payment with tokenized deposits. With tokenized deposits, when a payee transfers money to a recipient, the sending bank burns the tokens and the recipient bank mints them so they appear in the recipient's wallet. Instant settlement is facilitated by wholesale CBDC, with the token and CBDC exchanges happening simultaneously, so there's no settlement risk. https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/regional/na/us/Solutions/documents/e-hkd-and-the-future-of-global-money-movement.pdf?linkId=492498536

The OECD published a paper that analyzes possible reasons for the absence of a market for tokenized assets and puts forward policy considerations for financial supervisors and policy makers, to which Josiah Hernandez and I contributed material on the wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) aspects. Possible impediments tokenization growth identified include "chicken and egg" problems (e.g., the lack of liquidity and absence of an ecosystem for tokenized assets, and the need for distributed ledger technology (DLT) payment rails (including wholesale CBDC) to exist for the payment leg of settlement), market functioning challenges of instant and "atomic" settlement, the lack of custodians to onboard investors and assets, and legal issues (e.g., the legal status of smart contracts, token ownership not necessarily according ownership to the underlying assets). It concludes that "with the proper foundations in place, new possibilities of potential efficiencies and productivity gains in tokenized assets markets can be brought about in a manner that need not negatively impact financial stability, law enforcement, local and global policy regimes".

The IMF published a paper that presents a practical legal-analytical framework to assess how private law rules can be designed to support the wide circulation and safe holding of token-based central bank digital currency (CBDC) primarily intended for retail use. It follows a previous IMF working paper that examined the legal foundations of CBDC under central bank law and its treatment under monetary law-the main public law aspects of CBDC. A private law framework is also needed, because unlike account-based CBDC, token-based CBDC constitutes from the legal perspective a new form of money and hence raises a lot of challenges under private law. This legal nature will shape how token-based CBDC can be transferred, held in custody, "deposited" with commercial banks, and pledged. It is also be crucial that private law rules establish with certainty how ownership and other rights in token-based CBDC can be transferred between economic agents. In most jurisdictions, the private law regime for token-based CBDC will likely need to be augmented by a comprehensive legislative intervention to provide a sufficiently robust and predictable legal foundation for this new digital currency. In designing such a legislative framework, countries will need to consider carefully whether to anchor it in a broader framework for digital money or assets.