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JPMorgan Chase (JPM), the largest U.S. bank in terms of assets, remains steadfast in its plan to "tokenize" traditional-financial assets, largely undeterred by the crypto bear market and regulatory uncertainty.
The bank has processed almost $700 billion in transactions in short-term loans using its Onyx digital-assets platform, a permissioned version of the Ethereum blockchain, where customers can trade tokens that denote ownership rights to U.S. Treasurys as well as use blockchain bank accounts known as JPM Coin.
Among the clients known to be using the Onyx-based repo service are Goldman Sachs (GS), BNP Paribas and DBS Bank. Fifteen more banks and broker-dealers are looking to sign up, Tyrone Lobban, head of Onyx, told CoinDesk in an interview.
As the platform ramps up, Onyx will focus on tokenizing assets that are traditionally hard to finance, such as money-market funds, and will use them as collateral, Lobban said. Further down the road, Lobban expects Onyx will issue a wider range of blockchain-based assets, including private funds.
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JPMorgan (JPM) has teamed up with six Indian banks to settle interbank dollar transactions on its blockchain-based trading platform, Onyx, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
The investment bank will run a pilot project over the coming months alongside HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Yes Bank, IndusInd Bank and JPM's own banking unit in Gujurat, India.
The aim of the project, which starts today, is to settle dollar trades in real time around the clock as opposed to over a matter of days and only during the working week. Onyx, established in 2020, is the banking giant's digital assets network for settling wholesale payment transactions.
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Tokenization is just one application of blockchain technology, but it’s the one that could transform financial and non-financial infrastructure and financial markets over the next five to 15 years, Bank of America (BAC) said in a research report Thursday.
“We are on the verge of an infrastructure evolution that may reshape how value is transferred, settled and stored across every industry,” analysts Alkesh Shah and Andrew Moss wrote.
Tokenization is the process by which real-world assets are converted into blockchain-based tokens.
“The tokenization of traditional assets and issuance of assets in tokenized form have the potential to increase efficiencies and reduce costs across an asset's life cycle, improve the efficient allocation of capital, optimize global supply chains, catalyze a new generation of software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies and ultimately drive mainstream adoption,” the analysts wrote.
Bank of America notes that disruptive technology like radio, television and email took thirty years to reach mainstream adoption. It expects a much shorter lag for digital assets.
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... most RWA tokenization platforms require trust in some sort of intermediary to honor the redemption of the tokenized asset. If the intermediary evaporates, then so too can the claim on the underlying asset. This problem is referred to as the physical asset oracle problem and can be demonstrated with this example:
If Alice tokenizes her car, and Bob buys the token; how can Bob be sure he will receive the car?
That's not something blockchain can solve directly, as it always involves some amount of human coordination and trust. However, there is an alternative, more natively Web3 way of addressing this problem.
Instead of tokenizing physical assets directly, protocols can lock up parties' commitments to execute a commercial exchange as a type of forward contract, encoded within smart contracts and tokenized as redeemable NFTs. When a dispute happens, it can be handled by an algorithm encoded within a smart contract that refers it to decentralized dispute resolvers. The result is trust-minimized tokenization, exchange and settlement of RWAs.
Such protocols provide a more rigorous answer to the fundamental question of tokenization: how can we ensure claims are met? And convey the same level of assurance as DeFi since transactions cannot be reversed, rescinded or censored. This level of assurance provides "harder" tokenized RWAs whose reliability enables them to be the foundations of a smarter, more programmable economy.
Otherwise, if a trusted intermediary is required it brings back in everything blockchain is meant to avoid like counterparty risk, friction and monopoly power.
As the world’s leading blockchain academic, Prof. Jason Potts notes, “Now that we can tokenize all the world’s physical products and services into a common, interoperable format; list them within a single, public ledger; and enable market transactions with low cost of trust, which are governed by rules encoded within and enforced by the underlying substrate, what then? Then, computable capital enables ‘programmable commerce,’ but more than that – it enables what we might call a ‘turing-complete economy’.”
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Singapore, 2 October 2023 – UBS Asset Management has launched its first live pilot of a tokenized Variable Capital Company (VCC) fund. The fund is part of a wider VCC umbrella designed to bring various “real world assets" on-chain as part of Project Guardian, a collaborative industry initiative led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
Thomas Kaegi, Head UBS Asset Management, Singapore & Southeast Asia, said: “This is a key milestone in understanding the tokenization of funds, building on UBS’s expertise in tokenizing bonds and structured products. Through this exploratory initiative, we will work with traditional financial institutions and fintech providers to help understand how to improve market liquidity and market access for clients.”
Utilizing the firm’s in-house tokenization service, UBS Tokenize, UBS Asset Management launched this controlled pilot of a tokenized money market fund. Represented as a smart contract on the Ethereum public blockchain, the pilot enables UBS Asset Management to carry out various activities including fund subscriptions and redemptions.
This pilot is part of UBS Asset Management’s global distributed ledger technology strategy, focused on leveraging public and private blockchains networks for enhanced fund issuance and distribution. It also forms part of the broader expansion of UBS’s tokenization services through UBS Tokenize. In November 2022, UBS launched the world’s first digital bond that is publicly traded. In December 2022, UBS issued a USD 50 million tokenized fixed rate note, and in June 2023 originated CNH 200 million of fully digital structured notes for a 3rd party issuer.
Following the successful launch of the first pilot transactions, UBS Asset Management will be looking to execute further live pilot use cases under Project Guardian – working with a wider set of partners and explore various investment strategies.
About UBS
UBS is the largest truly global wealth manager and the leading universal bank in Switzerland. It also provides large-scale and diversified asset management solutions and focused investment banking capabilities. UBS helps clients achieve their financial goals through personalized advice, solutions and products. Headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, the firm has operations and offices around the globe. UBS shares are listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
JPMorgan has carried out its first live blockchain-based collateral settlement transaction involving BlackRock and Barclays, the U.S. banking giant said on Wednesday.
JPMorgan’s Ethereum-based Onyx blockchain and the bank’s Tokenized Collateral Network (TCN) was used by BlackRock to tokenize shares in one of its money market funds. The tokens were then transferred to Barclays Plc for collateral in an OTC (over-the-counter) derivatives trade.
The tokenization of traditional financial assets is a big deal for banks, and it’s an area JPMorgan has been leading the charge with, now joined by the likes of Citi and others.
Tokenization occurred within a matter of minutes through connectivity between the fund’s Transfer Agent and TCN, JPMorgan said in a press release. The transfer between Blackrock and Barclays was near instantaneous and represents a first for BlackRock, J.P. Morgan and Barclays, where the shares in MMFs are used as collateral between bi-lateral derivatives counterparts, it said.
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Put simply, a token is a digital representation of a real-world asset on the blockchain, where it is secured by both a public key (the location on the blockchain where it resides) and a private key (unique to the owner of the asset). Transactions involve changing ownership of the asset rather than its physical location, through digital contracts rather than traditional contracts.
In theory, any number of financial assets could be tokenized, including bonds, mutual funds and other securities, commercial real estate property and dollars. The process is most helpful in situations where transactions are complicated, such as business-to-business or cross-border payments, rather than peer-to-peer payments, which can already take place instantly through services such as Zelle.
Blockchain-based tokenization is not to be confused with credit card tokenization, where a card's primary account number is replaced by a "token," or a set of randomly generated numbers, to secure digital payments.
There are numerous benefits in financial services, from automated and highly auditable recordkeeping to fast payments that can take place across borders at any time of day. Efforts are likely to rise as blockchain technology becomes more accessible.
There is, or will be, "a fear of missing out," said Sudhir Pai, chief technology and innovation officer at the technology consulting firm Capgemini.
Tokenization makes the most sense for large global banks, which are active in trade finance, international payments, corporate treasury and financial markets, said Olsen, whereas smaller banks are less likely to have the resources or business case to justify it before they see how other ventures pan out.
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Experts say there are a number of advantages and applications for financial services companies.
"Because tokenization takes place on an append-only database [that is, one keeps adding information to it], it becomes a perfectly auditable history of that asset," said Matt Higginson, who leads distributed-ledger technology initiatives globally at McKinsey. "We can see when it was created, who owned or had the keys, when it was transferred to someone else. That becomes very attractive in financial services."
Tokenization can make inaccessible items easier to trade to a wider audience.
"I don't need to trade an ounce or gram of gold," said Higginson, as one example. "I can take that token and fractionalize it down to billionths or trillionths of a token and sell that little piece. This is attractive because we are opening the investment market to a wider variety of people, who may have smaller budgets."
It also makes trading quicker and less expensive for the custodian and buyer, if it can happen automatically at any time of day from a digital wallet. It solves the "double spend" problem, meaning the asset cannot be transacted more than once, said Higginson, because its change of ownership will be automatically recorded on the blockchain.
"That happens through a network of computers without humans doing any verification," said Higginson. "It gives people confidence that what they own is the real thing. There is no cheating or committing fraud."
Beyond efficiency, growth potential is another big reason financial services companies are or will turn to tokenization, Pai said.
"There are a tremendous amount of illiquid assets available in the world today," such as art or real estate, he said. "A capital markets or exchange business can introduce new securities."
Still, there are numerous reasons why banks are in the early stages of experimentation. Banks are still at the proof-of-concept stage for many use cases and are determining the right type of blockchain and how to keep assets secure, said Higginson.
"Tokenizing everything is technically possible, but operationally it is very complex," said Pai.
Financial institutions may be unmotivated to build a new technology stack, prioritizing experimentations with the buzzier space of generative artificial intelligence, and hesitant to enter an arena where regulation is still murky.
"We spend a lot of time making sure our regulators are comfortable with how this new technology is applied and how it is used in our businesses day to day," said Lobban.
Finally, to make tokenization work at scale, "it's not about one bank having a platform and looking at tokenization," said Pai. "It will only work when there is an ecosystem around tokenization."
For instance, several banks would need to align to tokenize syndicated loans, said Olsen.
"A lot of benefits only accrue when you have a network of banks using it," he said.
Nadine Chakar, global head of DTCC Digital Assets at the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp., believes now is the time for financial services players to collaborate instead of compete.
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... Kitco Crypto spoke with Reid Simon, Head of Credit at Securitize, which recently launched its new Securitize Credit subsidiary to bring on-chain yields to digital assets by leveraging private market returns.
As the conversation got underway, Simon highlighted the changing state of the companies looking to provide services to the crypto industry, noting that “Securitize has a broker-dealer license, an ATS license, and operates as a regulated transfer agent.”
“Those are all the core ingredients for how securities are traded in TradFi, so the concept of the company was to take that and be able to deliver real-world assets, bring them on-chain, and allow users to hold those assets and use them on-chain,” he said.
But it’s not always a straightforward process, he noted, as the regulations and pain points that exist for TradFi related to accreditations and qualified purchaser restrictions – which keep private assets largely out of the hands of retail investors – “triply exist on-chain for real-world assets.”
“If you look at what’s on-chain today, it’s not particularly high quality, at least in the credit opportunity space,” he said. “So there are a lot of challenges, very elementary, where some of these credit issuances take place in countries that don't even have perfection laws. So ultimately, enforcement against creditors doesn’t really exist.”
He said that is beginning to change now that countries are getting more serious about regulating the digital asset industry, which is leading to a rise in debt issuance via tokenization as opposed to issuing equity.
“In the traditional world, generally, you're taking on debt because you don't want to necessarily give away the upside to your equity,” he said. “But in the on-chain world, you have the advent of tokens, which I think supplanted the traditional role of debt.”
“So you can sell tokens, you have your user base. There's some utility to them. You're not giving away the upside to the equity and the tokens are free,” he said. “So I think debt, on-chain, has been looking for a product-market fit, and it's starting to emerge.
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Investment management giant BlackRock (BLK) has created a fund called the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, according to a document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The fund, incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, will be launched in partnership with asset tokenization firm Securitize.
The filing does not reveal what assets the fund will hold, but Securitize's presence potentially suggests the product has something to do with the tokenization of real-world assets, or RWA – industry jargon for representing ownership of a wide range of assets through a token on a blockchain. ...
BlackRock today unveils its first tokenized fund issued on a public blockchain, the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (“BUIDL” or the “Fund”). BUIDL will provide qualified investors with the opportunity to earn U.S. dollar yields by subscribing to the Fund through Securitize Markets, LLC.
“This is the latest progression of our digital assets strategy,” said Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock’s Head of Digital Assets. “We are focused on developing solutions in the digital assets space that help solve real problems for our clients, and we are excited to work with Securitize.”
Tokenization remains a key focus of BlackRock’s digital asset strategy. Through the tokenization of the Fund, BUIDL will offer investors important benefits by enabling the issuance and trading of ownership on a blockchain, expanding investor access to on-chain offerings, providing instantaneous and transparent settlement, and allowing for transfers across platforms. BNY Mellon will enable interoperability for the Fund between digital and traditional markets.
“Tokenization of securities could fundamentally transform capital markets. Today’s news demonstrates that traditional financial products are being made more accessible through digitization. Securitize is proud to be BlackRock’s transfer agent, tokenization platform and placement agent of choice in digitizing and expanding access to its investment products,” said Securitize co-founder and CEO Carlos Domingo.
BUIDL seeks to offer a stable value of $1 per token and pays daily accrued dividends directly to investors' wallets as new tokens each month. The Fund invests 100% of its total assets in cash, U.S. Treasury bills, and repurchase agreements, allowing investors to earn yield while holding the token on the blockchain. Investors can transfer their tokens 24/7/365 to other pre-approved investors. Fund participants will also have flexible custody options allowing them to choose how to hold their tokens.
The initial ecosystem participants in BUIDL include Anchorage Digital Bank NA, BitGo, Coinbase, and Fireblocks, among other market participants and infrastructure providers in the crypto industry.
BlackRock Financial Management, Inc., will be the investment manager of the Fund and Bank of New York Mellon will serve as the custodian of the Fund’s assets and its administrator. Securitize will act as a transfer agent and tokenization platform, managing the tokenized shares and reporting on Fund subscriptions, redemptions, and distributions. Securitize Markets will act as placement agent, making the Fund available to eligible investors. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP has been appointed as the Fund's auditor for the period ending December 31, 2024.
The Fund will issue shares pursuant to Rule 506(c) under the Securities Act of 1933 and Section3(c)(7) of the Investment Company Act. The Fund’s initial investment minimum is $5 million.
BlackRock has also made a strategic investment in Securitize. As part of the investment, Joseph Chalom, BlackRock’s Global Head of Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships, has been appointed to Securitize’s Board of Directors.
- Project Agorá will explore how tokenisation of wholesale central bank money and commercial bank deposits on programmable platforms can improve the monetary system.
- The project will explore how tokenisation and smart contracts could enable functionalities and transactions that are not viable today.
- The primary area of exploration will be to increase the speed and integrity of international payments, while lowering costs.
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) together with seven central banks today announced plans to join forces with the private sector to explore how tokenisation can enhance the functioning of the monetary system.
Project Agorá (Greek for "marketplace") brings together seven central banks: Bank of France (representing the Eurosystem), Bank of Japan, Bank of Korea, Bank of Mexico, Swiss National Bank, Bank of England and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. They will seek to work in partnership with a large group of private financial firms convened by the Institute of International Finance (IIF).
The project builds on the unified ledger concept proposed by the BIS and will investigate how tokenised commercial bank deposits can be seamlessly integrated with tokenised wholesale central bank money in a public-private programmable core financial platform. This could enhance the functioning of the monetary system and provide new solutions using smart contracts and programmability, while maintaining its two-tier structure.
Smart contracts can enable new ways of settlement and unlock types of transactions that are not viable or practical today, in turn offering new opportunities to benefit businesses and people.
This major public-private partnership will seek to overcome several structural inefficiencies in how payments happen today, especially across borders, which add a layer of challenges: different legal, regulatory and technical requirements, operating hours and time zones. Plus the increased complexity of carrying out financial integrity controls (eg against money laundering and customer verification), which today are often repeated several times for the same transaction, depending on the number of intermediaries involved.
Project Agorá: central banks and banking sector embark on major project to explore tokenisation of cross-border payments
Project Agorá will explore how tokenisation of wholesale central bank money and commercial bank deposits on programmable platforms can improve the monetary system. The project will explore how tokenisation and smart contracts could enable functionalities and transactions that are not viable...www.bis.org
I'm guessing this project isn't going to be developing a solution using a decentralized blockchain. It sounds more like a global wholesale CBDC.
Woo X is claiming bragging rights for being the first cryptocurrency exchange to offer retail customers exposure to tokenized U.S. Treasury bills.
The yield-bearing product, unveiled on Monday, called RWA Earn Vaults (as in real-world assets) has been built in partnership with London-based institutional tokenization platform OpenTrade. The product's arrival was described as a “significant milestone” by Woo X Chief Operating Officer Willy Chuang.
“For the first time, retail users on a centralized exchange can instantly access an interest-bearing account backed by U.S. Treasury Bills,” Chuang said in an email. “This initiative bridges a crucial gap between traditional financial securities and the dynamic world of cryptocurrency, offering our users an unprecedented opportunity to engage with low-risk, high-quality financial assets in a seamless, secure, and efficient manner.”
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With global financial heavyweights hopping on the red-hot tokenization trend to bring conventional assets onto blockchain infrastructure, a new company started by traditional finance veterans is building a digital marketplace with eyes on a U.S. regulatory nod.
Ironlight, started by Rob McGrath and Matt Celebuski, aims to tokenize private securities that are typically illiquid such as real estate, natural resources, fine art, public infrastructure and private equity while serving as a trading venue with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) blessing as a so-called alternative trading system, or ATS.
McGrath previously served as global head of trading at asset manager Schroders and Abu Dhabi's government-owned sovereign wealth fund Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), while Celebuski founded a brokerage that did trade-cost analysis and was acquired by financial technology company Abel Noser.
They are also joined by Greg Braca, former president and CEO of TD Bank, as a strategic adviser and board member.
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Tokenized Treasuries are digital representations of U.S. government bonds that can be traded as tokens on the blockchain.
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