Securitizing Digital Assets: What Else Can You Do with Tokenization in the Metaverse? (facilitated by Rebecca Liao, Saga)

While financial services have been the biggest use case for cryptocurrencies so far, there is an increasing trend towards tokenization of a wider variety of digital and real-world assets on the blockchain, including art, real estate, and precious metals. The tokenization of physical assets can bring a range of benefits to market participants, including reducing the cost of entry, broadening the investor base through fractionalization, and providing opportunities for new types of collateral on lending and borrowing protocols. At the same time, lack of a clear regulatory environment and a volatile market pose market liquidity and investor protection risks. This session will consider, among other things, what motivates industries to tokenize assets into NFTs on the blockchain, the types of industries and assets most suitable for securitization, and how the regulatory environment can adapt to ensure legal enforcement of the rights and obligations of these token holders, an adequate disclosures regime, and market stability while promoting market innovation. This session will also explore challenges arising out of tokenizing non-cash generating assets and NFT-based lending and borrowing protocols, and best practices for mitigating these risks.