Date of publication
26 January 2021

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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. 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) 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.

This report 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. The report also identifies some key regulatory issues in tokenised assets and markets that policymakers should be aware of and/or which may warrant attention by policymakers. An annex features a substantial list of policymaking approaches taken by different countries concerning asset tokenisation markets and their participants.

This report is a contribution to the work of the OECD Blockchain Policy Centre and the OECD Going Digital project. A shorter version of this report will become part of the Going Digital Toolkit.

See also

, OECD 2020