There's a Token for That: Exchanging Value in Modern Times

The financial world has been experimenting with the tokenisation of financial assts for some time. The Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Project Guardian has seen more than 15 industry trials conducted in six currencies across various products. With the Bank of England and other central banks enabling their Real Time Gross Settlement systems to accommodate distributed ledger technology infrastructure, there is no denying the inevitability of a rise in these technologies. However, the trials and use cases that have seen the most investment to date have largely offered process optimisation opportunities, with few examples truly leveraging the potential of the technology to solve for transdisciplinary, systemic challenges.

This roundtable will consider the potential of real-world asset tokenisation to transform handling of physical assets as well as financial. It will delve into how on and off-ramping of these assets might operate and what protections need to be in place to manage these? What would a legal framework for mediation and arbitration to support the adoption of these representations of real-world assets need to look like?

It will also consider the applicability of these tokens to improve liquidity and trust in practices like collateralisation, securities financing, and emergent asset classes like the carbon markets.