Can Tokenization of Asset Bring More Investment From the Masses

In a new article, Coindesk has predicted that the Cryptocurrency’s DeFi sector is set to see a resurgence of Security Token Offerings (STOs) and has predicted “a sixfold increase in the total dollars raised using such funding methods over the next four years.”

Tokenization of assets isn’t a new phenomenon, but unlike the waves in the past STOs, this time, it might tip the balance in favour of decentralized finance. The article further predicted that “more private companies will bypass traditional initial public offerings (IPO) and instead use blockchain technology to digitize the capital-raising process.”

Although traditional capital markets and venture capital firms have ceded some prime money-making to DeFi, doing away with conventional IPOs might be a significant first step to democratizing venture financing.

Past the debacle of early blockchain ICOs, where the process by which a company ICOs was easy, but the lack of related regulations within the US and abroad around ICOs had led to many fraudulent crowd sales, illegal airdrops, and outright scams. This, in turn, had tarnished the reputation of blockchain-based projects. However, tokenizing assets and either fiat-backed or cryptocurrency backed by gold and silver have dramatically increased confidence in the crypto-asset markets.

The tokenization of assets that represents a real tradable asset, in reality, is quite similar to the process of securitization. An STO, with increasing frequency, is also used to describe a share in a company, ownership of a piece of real estate, or participation in an investment fund. These security tokens are also tradeable on secondary markets.

The new token economy offers to open up the investment world making it more transparent, efficient, and fair. The simplicity of tokenization will also help in reducing the friction surrounding the creation, purchase, and sale of securities.

In addition, it will bring several advantages for both buyers and sellers that will include:

1. Increased Liquidity of the Market:

The tokenization of illiquid assets in private hands, specifically art, real estate, and the likes, will significantly boost the market’s liquidity. Not only will it make it possible to liquidate the illiquid assets partially, but the ability to trade the security tokens in the secondary markets will also increase the trading activity bringing with it a broader base of traders and investors.

The “liquidity premium” alone makes it worthwhile to tokenize illiquid assets capturing more excellent value for the underlying assets.

2. Making Transactions Faster and Cheaper:

The intelligent contracts attached with the tokens and their automated execution upon the meeting of coded terms in the smart contract will mean automation and lack of administration of much cheaper transactions. The buying and selling of the security tokens will require lesser intermediaries, faster deal execution and lower transactional fees.

3. Increased Transparency:

Since a security token is also essentially a smart contract, it can be embedded with the owner’s responsibility and rights. The fact that records on a blockchain are immutable searches, provenance and trading history would be a cinch. The entire chain of ownership rights, responsibility, and origin of the security token will be entirely transparent.

4. Greater Accessibility:

Most importantly, tokenization could open up the investment world to a large audience. The high liquidity, market movement, lower investment amounts, and shorter periods required to hold the token can make the token economy to the average investor. Like the ticket divides an illiquid asset, the tokens themselves are readily divisible into smaller and smaller fractions enabling even a small investor to participate in the token economy.

With automated workflows and cheaper and cheaper processing costs, and token administration, the minimum investment amounts will fall further. This will also increase liquidity allowing investors to hold the investments for shorter periods before cashing in. The trading is made even more robust due to secondary markets that operate 24/7.

5. Easier Asset Conversion:

With the DeFi market making the conversion of crypto assets into fiat currency more readily available, the same will become true for security tokens. By providing greater liquidity to an average investor that often shies away from investment into illiquid assets due to fear of the lengthy process of conversion of an illiquid asset into a liquid one.

If anything, the strong emergence and success of the DeFi market have shown us that making finance decentralized, transparent, and easily accessible will bring in more investors, not less, and lead to the market’s democratization.

In conclusion, the advent of a token economy will lead to a more transparent, liquid, accessible, and just financial and investment system that will serve more and more people via financial products and investment opportunities for all.