Finanziamento UE – NextGenerationEU PRIN 2022 "Designing a Governance for The Token Economy in a Decentralised Era" PNRR M4C2 investimento 1.1 Avviso 104/2022

This proposal aims to analyse the legal and economic challenges raised by the fast-growing tokenisation of assets. Tokenisation is the process of issuing a blockchain-based token that constitutes a digital representation of an existing tradable asset, physical or digital. It is a practice similar to the traditional securitisation, but its reliance on blockchain technology renders it a wholly new operation. Its benefits include higher liquidity, faster settlement, lower transaction costs and improved risk management. However, critical legal uncertainties accompany such advantages. The tokenisation market’s size and its relevant economic impact make it imperative for legal and economic scholars to perform a thorough analysis of all its implications, arguably lacking in the existing literature. An in-depth study is required to build a clear conceptual framework for professional operators, investors, economists, policy-makers, regulators and supervisors, also to reach a mature governance of this phenomenon. The three Research Units will engage in this effort relying on multidisciplinary expertise from economists, law experts, mathematicians, data scientists and IT specialists. Specifically, the research will address the following research questions: a) Which data and information are required to promote a sound economic understanding of the tokenisation of digital and physical assets? To this purpose, the project will provide specific deliverables: a comprehensive database on token offerings, gathering information from multiple well-known Security Token Offerings (STOs) and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) aggregators, and a desk analysis integrated by a market survey relative to physical asset tokens. b) how to reach a legal and economic understanding of the challenges brought by tokenisation. This will imply: 1) providing a taxonomy of tokens; 2) studying the tokenisation of physical assets; 3) analysing i) the tokenisation of digital assets by private actors (ICOs and STOs) and ii) the competition law issues raised by this practice; c) how to allow policymakers to adopt proper regulations to govern tokenisation. For this purpose, it is crucial to establish a sound academic background on this topic; in particular, it will be crucial to focus the research also on the legal and economic challenges that can render tokenisation a driver towards a more sustainable economy. The project will mainly lead to: cutting-edge legal scholarship on the main legal and economic issues of tokenisation; regulatory analyses available to legislators, regulators, and supervisors willing to reign in tokenisation without stifling its innovation potential; position papers for the non-expert public, better information for public opinion; increased legal certainty for operators; the establishment of a permanent network of Italian researchers working in this area, also including business and professional stakeholders; a prototype of blockchain-based real estate registry.