The week of 02/01 in brief – The news regarding Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies is in constant turmoil. It may happen that vital information gets lost in the daily news flow and you miss important points.
This format is there to remedy that. We come back to the news of the past week in the Crypto Weekly to keep you informed on the current situation of cryptocurrencies.
For the unmissable of this week we will look at an article written by Thomas Borrel . In this opus, the latter shares his thoughts on the sacralization of the tokenization of assets .
Token and tokenization: the end of all ills… of liquidity?
One of the biggest benefits that is often touted is that tokenization makes an asset more liquid , which is vital in attracting investors to assets that typically lack liquidity. Much of the tokenization debate centers on this point, primarily because it has always been a major issue for many traditional asset classes.
In practice, when an asset is tokenized, it allows investors to buy or trade tokens with more ease , and to buy only a fraction of its aggregate value if they wish.
However, in some cases defining an asset by its liquidity can be misleading. As with any asset, what ultimately matters is its underlying quality . The process of tokenization cannot make a weak asset strong just because it is associated with an expectation of increased liquidity. Real estate that has sagged is always sagging, whether symbolically or not.
Effectiveness and risks
Maximizing efficiency and minimizing risk have always been two major pillars for any financial institution. However, even today there is a series of financial instruments which are still very sensitive to issues in these areas , especially those that are traded “over the counter” (OTC). The best example is probably the bond market, a multibillion dollar market, where OTC transactions are still common.
When an OTC transaction is done, it is often done over the phone, with one person calling another to decide on a transaction. This introduces a huge information risk . Indeed, the teams in charge of corporate actions report error rates of up to 40% . When the transaction instructions are sent to the custodians, they identify the discrepancy. They must then investigate and find out what went wrong, which often results in very long delays in payment terms.