Abstract:
The Distributed ledger technology’s (DLT) and its application for finance has widespread during last years, and is now very relevant for the Fintech landscape. There are many examples, such that the payments with central bank digital currencies and fiat-backed stablecoins, the post-trade with DLT based clearing and settlement systems, the unregulated crypto-asset markets (such as bitcoin) or the tokenisation of assets. This last feature in particular, while it was just theoretical few years ago, is now a reality with successful pilot projects. The first uses were largely unrelated around Initial Coin Offerings, with non-compliant financial instruments, but now different Countries has implemented different features, as Turkey, that has found a place in traditional finance for stoks, bonds and commodities, as Swiss Stock exchange, wich has launched a platform for digital asset, and as the state of Delaware that has recently amended its law as to allow issuance of shares on a blockchain.
Dlt applications for finance are being developed trying to find benefits like speed, efficiency and transparency, but there are still risks for market operator as products high volatility,their possible not uniform operation, and problems with the develops of the markets for asset tokenaised. Regulatory approches for integration in that activities analyse the range of policies in responses to emerging issues in this born market. Large part of regulators have implemented a netrual-base approach for risks and policies, applying the same rules used for traditional market, while others are introducing new tailored structures to tokenized activities and DLT-based markets, defining new characters.
The goal of this thesis will be to try to describe in particular one of the DLT apllication, the asset tokenization, analysing its charateristics, benefits/risks, and most important the ways undertaken by different jurisdiction in EU to take into account this new outstanding technology, focusing on policys and regulations through two macro different points of view: a technology-neutral point of view, and the adoption of dedicated tailor-made frameworks.
