Asset tokenisation has become one of the most prominent use-cases of distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) in financial markets, for assets including securities (e.g. stocks and bonds), commodities (e.g. gold), trade finance and other non-financial assets (e.g. real estate), and with potential cross-cutting implications for financial market practices and participants, market infrastructure and regulators across a large range of financial instruments and asset classes.
The tokenisation of assets involves the digital representation of real physical assets on distributed ledgers, or the issuance of traditional asset classes in tokenised form.
This report identifies some key regulatory issues in tokenised assets and markets that policymakers should be aware of and/or which may warrant attention by policymakers.
The report also provides conceptual clarity on asset tokenisation and the approaches that policymakers are adopting vis-à-vis this nascent market, without evaluating or assessing any of these approaches.
This report is a contribution to the work of the OECD Blockchain Policy Centre and the OECD Going Digitalproject.
