Research Note on the Heterogeneity of the Tokenization of Financial Assets

This research note offers an interdisciplinary analysis of financial asset tokenization and its diverse implementations. Tokenization of financial assets is a process that transcribes financial assets into interoperable and trust-minimized digital forms to facilitate exchanges and enhance transaction certainty. We identify and examine three critical elements: the legal link between token and underlying asset, the characteristics of tokens and their infrastructures, and the model of ownership. The interplay of these elements significantly influences technical guarantees, legal certainty, and economic opportunities. As a result, this paper highlights the importance of recognizing the heterogeneity of tokenization projects.