Assets: From Concrete to Ether / DAVOS 2025

Summary

This panel discussion at the World Economic Forum focused on the tokenization of assets in financial markets. The participants explored the current state and future potential of tokenization across various sectors. Jeremy Allaire highlighted the growth of tokenized cash (stablecoins) and the recent emergence of tokenized treasury bills. He predicted that all forms of financial assets would eventually be tokenized and intermediated by smart contracts on blockchain networks.

The panelists discussed regional developments, with Ola Doudin noting strong adoption of stablecoins in the Middle East and government support for tokenization initiatives. Jirayut Srupsrisopa shared insights on Thailand’s progress, including successful real estate tokenization projects and upcoming green token listings. The potential for tokenization in private credit markets was emphasized as a significant opportunity.

Regulatory considerations were a key topic, with Marc Bayle de Jessé cautioning about the need for careful implementation to ensure financial stability. The panelists generally agreed on the need for standardized regulations across jurisdictions to facilitate growth while mitigating risks. They also discussed the importance of making the technology more accessible to drive mass adoption.

Looking ahead, the panel compared the current state of tokenization to the early days of the internet, suggesting that light-touch regulation could foster innovation. They anticipated continued growth in real estate tokenization and potential breakthroughs in areas like carbon credit tokenization by 2025. The discussion concluded with considerations of how tokenization might impact monetary policy and central bank operations in the future.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The current state and future potential of asset tokenization, especially in financial markets

– Regulatory challenges and approaches for tokenized assets across different regions

– Specific use cases and adoption of tokenization, like real estate and private credit

– The need for standardization and interoperability as the tokenization ecosystem develops

– Potential impacts on monetary policy and financial system stability

Overall purpose:

The goal of this panel discussion was to explore the current state and future outlook for asset tokenization, examining both opportunities and challenges from technological, regulatory, and market adoption perspectives across different global regions.

Tone:

The overall tone was optimistic about the long-term potential of tokenization, while also acknowledging current limitations and challenges. Panelists from private companies tended to be more enthusiastic, while those from traditional financial institutions were more cautious. The tone became slightly more critical when discussing regulatory hurdles and standardization needs towards the end of the discussion.

Speakers

– Xin Guan: Moderator from China Global Television Network

– Jeremy Allaire: CEO of Circle Internet Financial, a global blockchain-powered financial services company

– Ola Doudin: Co-founder and CEO of BitOasis, the Middle East’s largest digital asset platform

– Jirayut Srupsrisopa (Top): Founder and CEO of BitCup Capital Group Holdings, Thailand’s largest blockchain and digital assets company

РMarc Bayle de Jess̩: CEO of CLS Bank International

– Audience: Attendees who asked questions

Additional speakers:

– Mark Bell DeGessy: CEO of CLS Bank International (mentioned but did not speak)

Asset Tokenisation: The Future of Financial Markets

This panel discussion at the World Economic Forum explored the current state and future potential of asset tokenisation in financial markets. The diverse panel, moderated by Xin Guan from China Global Television Network, included industry leaders from various regions and sectors of the digital asset space.

Current State and Trends

Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle Internet Financial, highlighted that tokenised fiat currency, or stablecoins, currently represents the largest tokenised asset class. He also noted a growing trend in the tokenisation of treasury bills and money market funds. Regional perspectives were provided by Ola Doudin, CEO of BitOasis, who reported strong adoption of stablecoins in the Middle East, particularly in countries with high inflation rates and less efficient payment systems. She emphasized the potential for blockchain-based payment systems to address inefficiencies in the Middle East and North Africa region. Jirayut Srupsrisopa, CEO of BitCup Capital Group Holdings, shared insights on Thailand’s progress, citing successful real estate tokenisation projects, including a $50 million project, and upcoming green token listings. He also noted that 10% of Thailand’s population has invested in crypto.

However, Marc Bayle de Jessé, CEO of CLS Bank International, which is involved in FX settlement, cautioned that adoption has been relatively slow due to the need for clear use cases and regulatory frameworks. He stressed the importance of stability in financial market infrastructure and finding appropriate use cases for tokenization.

Potential and Opportunities

The panellists were generally optimistic about the long-term potential of tokenisation. Allaire emphasised the transformative potential of tokenising private credit, suggesting it could revolutionise lending practices by enabling broader access to credit markets, improved price discovery, and increased liquidity. He compared the current state of tokenization to the early days of the internet (1996-1997), implying significant growth potential. Doudin argued that tokenisation could help build more robust and liquid capital markets, while also enabling fractionalization and improved yields for real estate investing. She also highlighted the overlap between government KPIs and the potential benefits of tokenization in the Gulf region. Srupsrisopa highlighted the potential for tokenisation to bank the unbanked and improve trade financing, potentially addressing the $2.5 trillion trade financing gap for smaller companies.

Challenges and Considerations

Despite the optimism, the panel acknowledged several challenges facing the widespread adoption of tokenisation. Bayle de Jessé stressed the need to balance innovation with financial stability and consumer protection. Srupsrisopa identified three key areas requiring attention: the lack of standardised regulations across jurisdictions, technical scalability and interoperability issues, and the need to simplify user experience for mass adoption. He emphasized the importance of “humanizing” the technology to make it accessible to the general public.

An unexpected point of contention arose regarding the importance of speed in financial markets. While many use cases for tokenisation assume that faster transactions are better, Bayle de Jessé argued that this is not always true in financial markets, particularly in areas like foreign exchange settlement where netting is important.

Regulatory Approach

The discussion on regulation revealed both agreements and differences among the panellists. Allaire advocated for a light-touch regulatory approach with basic safeguards to foster innovation. Doudin emphasised the need for comprehensive but flexible regulation to allow businesses to operate profitably. Srupsrisopa stressed the crucial importance of standardising regulations across jurisdictions. Bayle de Jessé, representing a more traditional financial institution, cautioned about the need for careful implementation to ensure financial stability.

The panellists generally agreed that some form of regulation is necessary, but differed on the specifics of how it should be implemented. This reflects the complex challenge of integrating new technologies into established financial systems while balancing innovation with stability and consumer protection.

Future Outlook

Looking ahead, the panel anticipated continued growth in real estate tokenisation and potential breakthroughs in areas like carbon credit tokenisation by 2025. They suggested that a balanced regulatory approach could foster significant innovation in the coming years.

Audience Questions and Unresolved Issues

The discussion concluded with audience questions that raised important considerations. One question challenged the need for tokenized real estate given existing products like REITs, prompting the panelists to elaborate on the unique benefits of tokenization, such as increased liquidity and fractional ownership. Another question addressed the potential impact of tokenization on monetary policy and central bank operations, highlighting the need for further research and dialogue on these critical issues.

Other unresolved questions included how to achieve standardisation of regulations across different jurisdictions, how to balance innovation with financial stability, and how monetary policy and economic cycles would be managed in a fully tokenised financial system.

In summary, while the panel expressed optimism about the potential of asset tokenisation to transform financial markets, they also acknowledged the significant challenges that must be addressed for widespread adoption. The discussion underscored the need for continued collaboration between innovators, regulators, and traditional financial institutions to realise the full potential of this emerging technology, while also emphasizing the importance of making the technology accessible and user-friendly for mass adoption.

Xin Guan: Good afternoon, everyone, a very warm welcome to this session titled Assets from Concrete to Ether. My name is Guanxin. I’m from China Global Television Network. Well, we’re here to discuss one of the most dynamic transformations in the world of assets and finance. As we know, tangible assets have traditionally formed the backbone of the financial markets. However, with the rise of blockchain and digital technologies, some of these assets are now transferred into digital tokens, fungible, transferable units of value that exist only on decentralized ledgers. In the past year, we have seen the tokenization gaining momentum even at institutional or in some cases governmental levels. But it still challenges many long-held convention in law, regulation, and financial market operations. The industry faces a dual imperative to seize the opportunities provided by this technology and to carefully navigate the risks. This session aligns with World Economic Forum’s tokenization in financial markets initiative, which seeks to explore the very questions by analyzing existing use cases and identifying what’s needed for scalability and financial viability in the longer term. And let me briefly introduce our esteemed panelists. Jeremy Allaire, CEO of the Circle Internet Financial, a global blockchain-powered financial services company. Welcome. Jeremy has also provided expert testimony on digital assets and monetary policy to the U.S. Congress and serves on the IMF high-level advisory group on fintech. And next to him, Mark Bell DeGessy, CEO of CLS Bank International. Mark brings two decades of experience in financial market infrastructure and has two decades of experience at European Central Bank. Thank you so much for joining us. And top founder and CEO of – sorry, I introduce Ola Doding first. Co-founder and CEO of BitOasis, the Middle East’s largest digital asset platform, Ola has been recognized by Forbes Middle East as the top 10 women behind Middle Eastern tech brands in 2021. Congratulations and welcome to the panel. And Top, founder and CEO of BitCup Capital Group Holdings, Thailand’s largest blockchain and digital assets company. And Top is also an executive board member and vice president at Thai Fintech Association. Thank you all for being here. And before we get started, I encourage everyone to, including joining us online, to share your thoughts from this session using the hashtag WEB25. Let’s start with a broad view about where we are in this tokenization process. Jeremy, let me start with you. What trends or milestones do you see as defining this current phase of tokenization? And I hope it’s not Trump Mimikoin. No, no, very much not. Thank you. It’s great to be in the session. I’ll step back first before zooming in and say, stepping back, you know, the promise of tokenization was sort of conceptualized over a decade ago. And it’s what brought a lot of entrepreneurs into this industry. And the idea that you could have a digital token that represents something and that those digital tokens could, thank you. Okay. Is that all right? Okay. Switch places for a moment.

Jeremy Allaire: So conceptualized, like, you know, 10 years ago, these digital tokens could be running on these open networks. And that would be able to move those assets at the speed of the internet, the same way we move. move other assets. And the other big idea was that you could automate this with smart contracts, and that would create new ways to structure markets and intermediate finance. So those were the big ideas. Fast forward, it took about five or six years for even any of that to become technically viable. And I think it’s important to put into perspective the first and largest tokenized asset is tokenized fiat currency. And so that’s what we do. That’s our primary business is tokenizing cash in the form of USDC. And tokenized cash in the form that we know of as stable coins is a huge, huge market today. You know, there are well over 200 billion digital dollars tokenized cash instruments. Some are truly cash-like, meaning they’re reserved as an accountant would consider something cash. Others are not quite cash, but still it’s quite large. And that tokenized asset is now handling over $30 trillion a year in transactions on blockchains. So we have a huge at scale thing and the leading companies, including Circle, are large, significant scale, very profitable financial businesses now. The more recent trends that I’ll touch on is really this idea of further tokenization. You know, we have tokenized cash. What other real world assets could actually take advantage of the same fundamental technology and get improvements, whether it’s in capital markets and investments or ultimately in other areas like intellectual property and the like? But I know our focus here is primarily on financial markets. Over the last 12 months in particular, the second major category of tokenization really took hold, which was the tokenization of essentially treasury bills and what we think of as as short-term money, like money market funds. So that really was introduced. You had both startups and traditional issuers come into that space, and it’s relatively small still. So we went from zero to about $3 billion of these tokenized assets, but has grown quite rapidly. And this is something that we just got into as well. We acquired the largest tokenized money market fund, which is about 40 or 50% of the market US yield coin. And I think this is a huge area. So when you think about financial markets, you have the building blocks that are really, you have cash that you can use for payments and settlement. You have short-terration collateral and yield, which market participants want. And those can grow quite a bit together. And we think about the total money supply today of electronic money, a huge amount of it is in those things. Well, so that’s sort of the short-term, but once you have that, then this can really broaden out into the real economy. Once you have kind of cash and collateral that can move in these internet native ways, then you can start to think about other types of investable assets that can use those as underlying financial building blocks. And so I think the big idea is ultimately everything that you’d ever see in a capital market, from every form of credit, every form of debt, every form of equity, every derivative, all of these will be digital token-based, intermediated by smart contracts, running on blockchain networks that are highly available around the world. And that’s, I think, clearly where we’re headed. But it took us 10 years roughly to get to where we are today, probably another 10 years before capital markets, infrastructure more broadly is sort of built up around this.

Xin Guan: And Mark, you know, as the CEO of the CLS Bank, how do you understand the current phase of this token? tokenization and How long along has the financial sector like banks integrate this into their core processes

Marc Bayle de Jessé: So first it’s a thank you to have me here. I am the only one with a tie and I feel Like a stranger not fitting completely there So it’s interesting to hear to speak about those tokenization when I was invited. I look at the title. It’s quite interesting asset from concrete To ether. I hope it’s concrete you’re talking Because it represent a concrete wealth It represent a concrete cash in the case You just mentioned Jeremy and therefore the necessity to keep this is very important Otherwise if we create a world with fictitious values or fictitious assets That’s another story And that’s why you probably The adoption of this technology has been a bit long because it has been created under the premises of some asset Which are not so clear what they are. I mean the Bitcoin not to speak about them While here we speak of real asset when we speak of tokenizing cash tokenizing treasury bills securities That’s another story. That’s really Moving concrete value from one place to another so probably the adoption of this technology Could be much easier in this context I would say so for me the Fact that this is going and taking time is mainly driven by the use case that you can have on the different usage and maybe Colleagues afterwards will speak with mentions on different use case which are specific to a region specific to a technological development environment Where this technology can be a better fit than more traditional technology and therefore being more answering The need and therefore an adoption which could be quicker than in other cases Today CLS Bank International which I am steering is doing FX settlement and the tokenization is not really an issue there, or a question, because it is already digital since inception, so it’s more than two decades old, the system, and therefore the physical friction is not at all a problem. We are speaking much more of finding the appropriate legal, regulatory, and governance solution to make that work. It was interesting to hear the example just that you mentioned, Jeremy, which is within a single regulatory space, and therefore easier to implement as soon as you get into a more international and friction between different jurisdictions, the problem again would be of a different nature, and therefore use cases have to be found to justify this technology. The adoption is long, and we are all living in a financial world under strong regulatory frameworks. It can be stronger in some jurisdictions than in some others, and might become lighter in some others as we go, but this regulation is made for a good purpose. At least the intention is to make sure that safety and stability of the system is preserved,

Xin Guan: which was the main intention of the regulators. Sometimes they eventually go too far, but that gives us safety in the system. That’s a very critical point. Ola, in your opinion, how ready are people, businesses, or even governments in the Middle East for the tokenization of assets?

Ola Doudin: Great to be with everyone here. I definitely agree with Jeremy and Mark in terms of the trends in the industry, in terms of how tokenization is taking shape. I think in the Middle East you definitely see governments, businesses, and consumers embracing tokenization. To give you an example from a consumer adoption perspective, stable coins, USDT, USDC, are amongst the highest traded assets. There’s some months where it’s higher even than Bitcoin, which tends to be the highest assets in terms of daily volumes and monthly volumes on the platform. That was not the case 18 or 24 months ago. So we definitely see consumers, individuals, businesses, you know, high net worth individuals leveraging stable coins for cross-border payments, you know, real-time payments, and to some extent access to tokenized dollars or easy access to tokenized dollars. Now if we zoom out of the Middle East and look at recent statistics, you know, across emerging markets, so regions like Sub-Saharan Africa, in the Middle East I would say particularly Turkey, Argentina, where there’s high inflation rates. In terms of assets that are being received on yearly basis, stable coins make over 50% of assets that are being received, versus in the U.S. I believe the statistic from Chinalysis was close to 37% or so. So there’s definitely high demand to tokenize dollars, particularly when it comes to, I would say, countries or economies where there’s high inflation rates, and to some extent I would say clunky payment systems where stable coins can be leveraged for that. I think just going back to the Middle East in terms of adoptions, I spoke about consumer adoption that we’re definitely witnessing and has been growing on yearly basis, but equally as important I would say is governments really pushing tokenization in the form of regulatory frameworks, and I think there are different reasons for that. So governments across the Gulf obviously have adopted as a priority to build more robust transparent capital markets, so that’s in the form of regulatory frameworks for market structure, you know, participants, or in terms of issuance of assets and all of that, and really tokenization comes at the core of that. Tokenization, and I would say broadly, you know, crypto assets in terms of also activity. So, you know, you see that across Abu Dhabi, Dubai with Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority, Qatar with a big focus on tokenization, so there’s a big push to build that industry and then build the right regulatory frameworks, not just for local players, I would say also for international players. They’re particularly building, you know, or essentially building products and market structure to really grow the industry in a meaningful way, and a lot of that is to bring liquidity to those, you know, jurisdictions. So we definitely play a key role there in terms of, you know, us as a broker-dealer and custodian to be able to provide access for those assets and liquidity, you know, at the end of the day. Just to kind of give an example, there’s obviously a lot of that tokenization from regulatory perspective for both, you know, liquid and, you know, illiquid markets, but I think an interesting angle that we do foresee a lot of growth over the next, you know, two or three years is tokenization of real estate, and obviously in the Gulf, particularly I would say Dubai, the real estate market have shown double-digit growth and that continues to grow, so like a recent statistic is that in 2026 there’ll be 80% higher real estate units that will be introduced at the market versus 2024, so they’ve been obviously the GCC, but I would say particularly Dubai has been experiencing tremendous growth, particularly in the real estate market, and there was a recent deal that was signed by DEMACC, which is the largest, one of the largest real estate developers with a blockchain provider called Mantra to tokenize 1 billion of real estate assets for DEMACC, so we definitely see a big push from governments, corporates to, you know, embrace tokenization, and I think, you know, GCC can potentially take a lead in

Xin Guan: terms of growth in that industry. Since remarkable growth due to the joint forces of the governments and businesses and the consumer readiness and top, what is your sense of the tokenization? So, I’m glad to be back here at Davos again. I agree with Jeremy that in the next, you know, decade, anything that can be tokenized will be tokenized. In the past 20 years, the Internet has already successfully digitized all kinds of information.

Jirayut Srupsrisopa: So, I’m glad to be back here at Davos again. I agree with Jeremy that in the next, you know, decade, anything that can be tokenized will be tokenized. So, I’m glad to be back here at Davos again. I agree with Jeremy that in the past 20 years, the Internet has already successfully digitized all kinds of information. Anything that can be digitized has already been digitized. And with the blockchain in the next decade, all kinds of value will be tokenized. Not just like money market fund. And with, you know, Ola just said her prediction, you predict that in the next two or three years, real estate is going to be tokenized, right? We are already in the middle of the digital revolution, and it’s already happening in Thailand. Thailand is so under the radar on a global scale. We got to the point that 10% of all the population got crypto in Thailand. One out of seven people has our application on their phone. Part of the reason is because our regulation is so advanced. It’s not just about the application, it’s about the real estate. We have a real estate-backed token. Our client is called the origin group, top five real estate firm in the country. We have been working with them and the SEC for almost two years. We successfully raised $50 million, not as quite as $1 billion yet, but $50 million for our client. Reproducibility is just starting, but it’s only so far in theできNets. From money for owning the whole room for $10 million, it is fractionalized into micro-units, right? We certainly did a lot of hard work across the globe to channelize and energize the real estate investments, through anecdotes, to So, the ticket size is down from $10 million to $10 per unit. So, we are democratizing investment opportunity, and this is already a successful use case in Thailand. It’s been almost two years. And by the end of this, it was going to be the end of last year, the process got delayed a bit. We were going to be listing green token very soon, you know, carbon credit tokenization, electricity unit tokenization. So, Thailand is really under the radar, and the reason why we are moving so fast is because we have a stable and clear regulation. So, we’re going to be listing green token very soon on a regulated exchange in Thailand. And also, under this current government, they’re launching stable coins for Phuket now, you know, the tourism hub, very soon. And they’re also exporting soft power. So, instead of only just tokenize fungible token, we can also tokenize non-fungible token for IP, for different soft power intellectual properties going forward. So, I would say, you know, Thailand is moving really fast, and the regulator has been very helpful. That’s why the adoption is growing quickly. In the next two or three years, I agree that we’re going to see more than just real estate.

Xin Guan: We’re going to see all kinds of assets being tokenized on an open system. So, talking about different industries being impacted by tokenization, Jeremy, I want to have your thoughts on which sector or which industry holds the greatest potential coming up next.

Jirayut Srupsrisopa: So, I mean, I’ve thought about this for a while, and I think from a financial industry perspective, there are a couple of megatrends that are already going on in the world. So, one is the shift from bank credit to private credit. And, you know, essentially, you know, lending models for credit delivery, whether it’s to corporations or even ultimately underwriting credit to households, that’s coming from these kind of private credit institutions. And that’s grown massively, and as you’ve seen from some of the major, you know, M&A with BlackRock and others, there’s a huge focus on this. Now, what’s interesting about that is that part of the philosophy of crypto and blockchain is actually built around this idea of kind of full reserve money. And if you have full reserve money, and then you have credit intermediation done on a blockchain, you could actually potentially deliver a safer credit delivery system than what banks do today. And so when I actually step back and think about it, I actually think one of the largest and most exciting opportunities is the tokenization of private credit, and effectively enable people whose job it is to figure out if someone is creditworthy. And that could be highly decentralized. You can imagine, the analogy I like to use is Amazon or Alibaba are these incredible marketplaces. And, you know, someone can create a very unique product, and there’s a buyer for it, and you’ve been able to get super, super diversified all the way, people call it long-tail markets. We’ve seen the same thing in advertising, AdWords is the most efficient marketplace for attention, selling of attention. And we’ve never had that kind of capital market. But I actually think if you could tokenize, you know, these very small amounts of credit, you could actually have the people who make decisions about what’s creditworthy be as broad and automated with AI and data as we have with advertising and e-commerce and the like. And so I envision a world over the next 10 years where credit delivery and tokenization of private credit. It becomes actually, potentially over time, much larger than bank lending. And so that’s, to me, that’s a very interesting area. It doesn’t require us to take some external concrete asset, because it can all just be done with digital cash, like stablecoin, on these networks as well. So that’s something I really see developing and am quite excited about.

Xin Guan: Let’s examine how may various financial services evolve as a result of tokenization. Marc, I only have your view on this, especially how do you think that those financial institutions should balance their need for innovation and their judiciary responsibilities?

Marc Bayle de Jessé: So the question is really broad. If I look at it from CLS bank perspective, which is a financial market infrastructure or providing infrastructure to settle a specific layer of the market, innovation is critical. So we are looking at innovation, and we are trying to understand what are the new technological developments that could help us. So tokenization is one of the topics. That’s why we are there today in this panel, by the way. We are looking at this. We are trying to understand this development. But there is also technological development, which are also very important. I mean, artificial intelligence, which is one of the big themes here at Davos this year, is clearly also very important. So there are many aspects that we have to look at. I am just extremely careful as a financial market infrastructure on the adoption of those technologies to make sure, again, that the focus, maybe it’s because I was there before, as you mentioned it, in central banks, the stability of the system we deliver is absolutely key. We cannot take a chance on that. And therefore, the clear effect of what we are doing has to be fully understood before adopting too much of those technologies. The second dimension we look at, when we look at, again, the specific case of an FMI like mine. design, is to see the cost of operation of those technologies. So again, here we have to be careful that the cost of implementing those technologies and the stability that it brings should be at the level which allows us to do that. So I come back to my first remarks. The use case will define, in fact, the adoption. The example which was given now is a very good one. There might be good examples also for financial markets, which could work, and for the wholesale part of the financial market in which we are, but it’s not always universal. And maybe one thing I wanted to say at some point where I have the microphone. The premise of a lot of those use cases is that faster is better, usually. It’s not always true in the financial markets. When you have deep markets with a lot of transactions which are done within a short timeframe, typically within a day, let’s say, in particular true in the FX market, where you buy and sell the same currencies to create depth in the market and liquidity, you want to net those activities to one payment at the end of the day so that you don’t create problem on the access to liquidity. And that is critical in the functioning of a settlement market, for instance, or FX settlement capacities. So again, we have to look carefully to what segment of the market we can bring those elements. But for sure, this will develop. And the tokenization, the fact that you digitalize in a clever way a financial instrument will be very helpful. And Ola, do you think Mark is too cautious? Too cautious? From what sense he means?

Xin Guan: I mean, the need to regulate the market more carefully, and do you think we should innovate more like new entrants like the BitOasis? How is you adapting to the fast-changing consumer needs and bridge the financial gap? And what are your considerations for for the ethical and safe development of tokenization? Yeah, so obviously I think that happened in our case,

Ola Doudin: like in crypto, but I think eventually with any new innovation is that the builders and the operators and particularly I think entrepreneurs and startup builders are always ahead of the regulation. So essentially you want to kind of build the innovation, get some form of scale until it becomes an issue for the regulator to really look at and then say, all right, now we can scale and regulate the industry. And definitely from our experience that also has been the case. But I think with tokenization, it is a proven use case and not just that, it’s a proven use case for governments and regulators that it can help governments hit their KPIs as well. So I mentioned in terms of the liquidity, building more robust capital markets, potentially bringing liquidity into real estate as well and growing the industry further. So there is a huge overlap, I would say, in terms of the innovation, the industry, the value creation obviously they can bring. And then with government KPIs, particularly I mentioned in terms of the Gulf region. So I feel that when it came to tokenization, it was sort of a no brainer for governments to come in and really tackle it as a priority. In fact, I believe in Qatar, the framework for tokenization was prioritized over crypto asset regulation. But obviously, I do believe that crypto assets, broker dealers that trade assets like Bitcoin, ETH, et cetera, are part and parcel of tokenization ultimately. So you have to build on public blockchains for various reasons in terms of scalability, security, robustness, et cetera. But you kind of see in terms of how governments are really looking at it from a priority and kind of perspective. Ultimately, for the industry to scale, you need regulation, right? So you need different stakeholders to work together, really kind of build the industry to unlock value, and ultimately have the institutions, the corporates really come in and play a big role. You know, like the Mac, for instance, being one of the largest developers, really participate in that industry and kind of, you know, unlock value. So we definitely kind of see that, like, happening, but it needed regulators and governments to really understand the potential of the technology, ultimately, for them to prioritize it in terms of setting the right frameworks and rules. So yeah, but I think on the point in terms of, like, the trends in the industry, and I just want to kind of double click on the, you know, real estate and the payments part as well. I think often we have people saying, well, but, you know, fractionalization or tokenization is sort of like not a kind of new thing, so what is so interesting, you know, about that? So I think, you know, kind of like picture if you’re a real estate investor, so essentially you’re buying your units, part of that is a token deal where you earn further yield, so you have even higher yield in terms of yearly rental on your apartment where you’re generating obviously, you know, rent in terms of your yearly yield on the asset itself, but on the tokens as well, additional yield that makes it way more competitive and lucrative, you know, investment versus other investments that could be in the market. So that’s, I think, like an interesting proposition, and then the additional liquidity that can be brought into the real estate market in terms of participation and access and all of that. I think from a stable coin perspective, and one thing that we’re, you know, very excited about that a lot of the countries within the Middle East and North Africa region, I think if we zoom out of the GCC, that actually have robust financial, sorry, robust national payment systems, so there’s an opportunity to leapfrog here and actually build blockchain-based payment systems that don’t necessarily have to be CBDCs from, you know, kind of day one, but then if essentially entrepreneurs and startups can innovate in that area where there is also potentially interoperability between those different stable coins across, you know, blockchain. So I think that obviously would be groundbreaking in terms of cross-border payments, trade across, you know, different kind of countries across the region, which is quite exciting. So I think that that would be a big opportunity to also unlock growth across different economies. And top, how is the regulatory

Xin Guan: landscape looks like in Asia and how are financial institutions in Asia

Jirayut Srupsrisopa: involving in this tokenization process? To be honest, it’s quite fragmented in Asia and we really need standardization of regulatory standard clarity. Otherwise, there are going to be bad actors hiding in one of the islands and trying to take advantage of the regulatory arbitrage that we have seen in the past. And that also triggers, makes things worse for the government because when there are bad use cases or bad incidents, they’re going to become even overly conservative because of a few bad actors destroying the image or reputation. But I don’t think under Trump’s administration the government is going to be conservative anymore, right, moving forward. Innovation is going to happen super fast in this space. But there’s no alliance of regulators yet that would create a, you know, conforming regulation across the ASEAN region, actually the whole world, because eventually liquidity is going to be free flow throughout the whole open system. So we need to work on the standardization. of regulation, standardization of technology, scalability of technology, and also humanization. How do we hit mass adoption if we’re going to have to still talk about cryptographic hash function, private key, public key, the non-human language that the crypto people are using today? We need to humanize the experiences so that people in Asia can use the technology without them knowing that they are even using the technology. And I think tokenization has a big potential to bank the unbanked with a phone that is connected to the internet. They can tap global liquidity and get access to the best financial products, which we will see in order of magnitude more financial products coming out on an open system, on chain, on the blockchain. And also the trade financing issue. Right now there’s 2.5 trillion trade financing issue that only big companies get access to. And once everything is on chain, we can utilize AI. Once everything is in a digital format, we can release loans in three seconds. We can tokenize letter of credit with transparency, efficiency, automation, smart contract. So there are benefits that are going to come very soon, but we need to really standardize the regulation and scalability and interoperability of technology.

Xin Guan: We probably need a central body to help align going forward. So looking ahead, how will the industry, what are needed for it to progress the technology application? And would you expect the pace of tokenization in 2025? Maybe some brief thoughts finally from all of you.

Jeremy Allaire: I’ll go very quick. I actually think this is a little bit like… where we were with the web in 1996, 1997, and where I think you actually don’t want to over-prescribe. You want to have a very basic set of boundaries around the issuance and trading and use of digital tokens. And you should allow entrepreneurs, businesses, intermediaries within basic parameters to unleash and unlock using digital tokens in a huge area of experimentation. And if we didn’t create that space for web entrepreneurs and internet entrepreneurs in the late 90s, we wouldn’t have so much of what we really take for granted today. And so I actually think this is an opportunity for light-touch regulation with the basic safeguards, not overly prescriptive. And I think if the United States can lead with that, and the United States is demonstrating to the world that the best entrepreneurs, the best companies, the best builders are doing that in the United States, I think that will create an impetus for lots of other markets around the world, much as what happened with the internet itself, which really unlocked the incredible range of things that we see today. And so that’s, I guess, my short-term take on what’s needed. And Mark, you still look a little bit cautious.

Xin Guan: Me too, actually. I have a question. Is it tokenization may also lead to a too-big-to-fail problem if the market grows very quickly? Yeah.

Jeremy Allaire: Aren’t we already there? I mean, that’s a broader question, no? I don’t know how to answer really this point. I mean, indeed, what is important for me? I mean, when I hear my panelists, I am quite optimistic when I hear you and you. I am more pessimist with the last intervention which was made. The problem we are trying to resolve in financial markets since I work. Unfortunately, it’s not two decades, three decades, is standardization, is trying to make interoperability between the various segments of the market working. And if to go to the next stage, as you said, we need this standardization across different jurisdictions which have no common interest, while we are not even as humanly, I’m speaking simply, able to get to this level of standardization, even within a set of countries which have a common interest, like the EU, then it will take some more years to get there, to say the least, because this level of standardization of regulations, standardization of technical features just by defining what is a token, we don’t have yet even a definition, I think, agreed amongst everyone on what is a token. I am sure if I ask a question in the room or in the panel, I get a different answer. It will take time to get there. Now the good of the ecosystem which are dual will be incentive to get there eventually. But the governance, finding the right governance, is always a difficulty when you get into cross-jurisdiction context. I am living it and breathing it every day in my 18 different jurisdictions that I have

Xin Guan: to manage every day, and with a system which is working. But to create this common goal and common incentive is really difficult. But it’s worth the money if it works as we can do it. That is very important, the long-term development of tokenization. And Ola, what do you expect, the pace of tokenization development in 2025? There are some specific dynamisms you are looking at?

Ola Doudin: I think the value proposition is there, it’s clear, I think the demand is there, adoption obviously would follow. There’s no shortage, I think, of entrepreneurs or builders in this space that would tackle the opportunity. But I’m going to echo actually Jeremy’s words in the sense that light touched darkness. type of regulation, so innovators, startups can actually innovate in this space without heavy regulation that ultimately makes it very difficult to tackle the opportunity. So I think that would be, I think, the main takeaway, at least for me. I think even when we talk to regulators, we try to really kind of double click on that point. It’s great to have regulation that is comprehensive, but often it becomes very difficult to implement in practice, particularly when there’s a lot of focus on risk mitigation to an extent where businesses aren’t able to run profitably, when the business opportunity is still kind of early days or emerging. So yeah, so that would be, I think, my input.

Xin Guan: And talk with ASEAN with a different level of varying level technology maturation. How do you expect the pace of tokenization in 2025?

Jirayut Srupsrisopa: I think Singapore and probably UAE will lead the adoption, will lead the way for tokenization. And we will probably see institutional adoption in some of these places. I think a few days ago, the CEO of the Bank of America said if the regulators allow them to adopt crypto, they will adopt crypto as a product. I think one major player has to take that action, and then it’s going to create a ripple impact, the game theory impact, and then the rest of the world would adopt. And I foresee real estate tokenization is going to be one of the easiest use cases we see in 2025, and probably carbon credit tokenization in Thailand, for instance. And areas like Singapore, UAE will probably lead. Lead lead the adoption. Thank you. And we may have time for one or two questions from the audience that lady

Audience: I live in the UAE and I hear there’s a lot of positivity around tokenizing real estate what I have issues trying to understand Just because you can’t recognize something doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t recognize it. And do you really believe that there is a Need in the market for it with real estate. It’s very heterogeneous and in nature Is it really that much more of a demand for it then perhaps going to an ETF or a rate if?

Xin Guan: You could speak to it anyone. Thanks. I Can tackle that

Ola Doudin: So say I think like reads existed as such as Chacha I think the main point though with tokenization is so fractionalization. I think ownership really say it is one But ultimately is for real estate developers to be able to provide a better proposition for you know Their customers from a yield perspective. So I think that’s another angle that they find quite attractive, you know with tokenization where there is more kind of Competitiveness across different real estate developers and then they also see it as a fundraising angle potentially With some of the real estate, you know developments that they that they are introducing newly to the market Now in terms of the market structure for liquidity in terms of like do you have like a second market? Do you have the exchanges and so there’s a lot of kind of infrastructure work obviously that needs to you know Be established and not just that I would say also a legal framework like, you know, the land departments the court systems, etc So there’s still obviously a lot of work from an infrastructure perspective that needs to be put in place but I believe that Once you have the adoption, or in the sense that interest from the institutions and the big corporates, and there is actual signaling from customers and investors that they’re interested in that product, I think those kind of things would fall in place, ultimately.

Xin Guan: Any more? Go ahead. I’ll take you.

Audience: I know you’re not a macroeconomist. I am a macroeconomist, but I’m just wondering if you anytime had a deep debate on what would be the consequence for monetary policy, and to be more precise, how central banks can manage economic cycles in a world of fully decentralized finance, in a world of private credit. Have you ever, anytime, had a big discussion on this topic? I have a hard time thinking on how they could manage cycles, and the idea of decentralization

Jeremy Allaire: is probably to get away from government intervention on these policies. Just would love to hear of yours. I’ll take a crack at that. I think, so first of all, there’s not a move. Decentralized technology infrastructure, the Internet’s decentralized technology infrastructure is distributed around the world based on open protocols that are permissionless that anyone could connect to. All we’re saying, the only thing I’m really saying here is that the decentralized compute operating systems that are blockchains, that’s a powerful infrastructure. It enables better reach, interoperability, efficiency, so that’s like a technology layer. It’s not about the principle of getting away from governments per se. In terms of the premise around monetary policy, I mean, the banking world and regulators and central banks, at least going back to the 1930s in the United States, made a choice which was allow banks to leverage capital on a 10 to 1 basis, a 12 to 1 basis, and mutualize the risk with insurance. That model, fractional reserve banking, is how credit delivery happens today. You still have the central bank setting an interest rate on the risk. free rate of holding money with them. There’s nothing that prevents you from having an interest rate that’s a risk-free rate that is the price of money at the core or central bank level, but also have full-reserve accounts where the lending is happening with full-reserve assets. And that was the big debate after the Great Depression. The Chicago plan put forward the idea that you’d have payment banks that are only holding permanent full-reserve capital, and you have lending institutions that can use that to make loans, and that would smooth economic cycles, reduce recession risk, and ultimately fulfill the credit delivery needs that exist. We now actually have the technological basis to do that at scale, and that’s exactly the design of USDC. It’s a full-reserve digital dollar, and it’s designed for a world where credit intermediation could happen directly, and that doesn’t need to be levered. And so it’s aiming towards a safer model, but it’s still the dollar and the underlying capital cost in terms of interest rate. We’re inheriting the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve. We’re not doing anything away from that. So I think there’s a way to do it, and I actually think it represents a huge opportunity for both improving how credit works in the world, making it more accessible, greater reach, more efficient, more scale

Marc Bayle de Jessé: everywhere, and reducing risk in the real financial system. Maybe I can add one point. I mean, I agree completely with what Jeremy says, but also maybe to explain why central banks are only mostly looking at the CDBC model, where they keep control of the currency. It’s just another form of circulation of their currency. So you have banknotes, you have eventually CBDC, and then you have normal accounts, structure, centralized. They want indeed to keep control on the monetary policy effect, so either by immobilization or by a different mechanism. And yeah.

Xin Guan: Thank you so much, and that’s all time. we have today, and I encourage everyone to continue to share your takeaways from this session using the hashtag WEF25, engage with the broader community. And many thanks to our esteemed panelists for your invaluable insights, and thank you for our audience for being here with us. And that’s all for this session, and enjoy the rest of the forum. Bye-bye. Thank you.

Agreement Points

Tokenization has significant potential in real estate

speakers

– Ola Doudin
– Jirayut Srupsrisopa

arguments

Middle East governments and businesses are embracing tokenization, especially for real estate

Thailand has advanced regulation and adoption of tokenization, especially for real estate

summary

Both speakers highlight the adoption and potential of tokenization in the real estate sector, citing specific examples from their respective regions.

Regulation is crucial for the growth of tokenization

speakers

– Ola Doudin
– Jirayut Srupsrisopa
РMarc Bayle de Jess̩

arguments

Comprehensive but flexible regulation is important to allow businesses to operate profitably

Standardization of regulations across jurisdictions is crucial

Adoption has been slow due to need for clear use cases and regulatory frameworks

summary

All three speakers emphasize the importance of appropriate regulation for the growth and adoption of tokenization, with a focus on flexibility and standardization across jurisdictions.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers advocate for a balanced regulatory approach that allows for innovation while providing necessary safeguards.

speakers

– Jeremy Allaire
– Ola Doudin

arguments

Light-touch regulation with basic safeguards is needed to foster innovation

Comprehensive but flexible regulation is important to allow businesses to operate profitably

Both speakers see tokenization as a means to improve and expand financial services, particularly in lending and trade financing.

speakers

– Jeremy Allaire
– Jirayut Srupsrisopa

arguments

Tokenization of private credit has huge potential to transform lending

Tokenization can help bank the unbanked and improve trade financing

Unexpected Consensus

Importance of user experience for mass adoption

speakers

– Jirayut Srupsrisopa

arguments

User experience needs to be simplified for mass adoption

explanation

While other speakers focused on regulatory and technical aspects, Srupsrisopa uniquely emphasized the importance of user experience for widespread adoption of tokenization. This perspective adds a consumer-centric dimension to the discussion that was not prominently featured by other speakers.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The speakers generally agree on the potential of tokenization, particularly in real estate and financial services. They also concur on the need for appropriate regulation to foster growth and innovation in the sector.

Consensus level

There is a moderate to high level of consensus among the speakers on the main issues. This suggests a shared understanding of the opportunities and challenges in tokenization, which could facilitate coordinated efforts to advance the technology and its applications. However, there are some differences in emphasis and specific focus areas, reflecting the diverse backgrounds and regional perspectives of the speakers.

Different Viewpoints

Pace and approach to regulation

speakers

– Jeremy Allaire
РMarc Bayle de Jess̩

arguments

Light-touch regulation with basic safeguards is needed to foster innovation

Need to balance innovation with financial stability and consumer protection

summary

Jeremy Allaire advocates for a light-touch regulatory approach to foster innovation, while Marc Bayle de Jessé emphasizes the need for careful consideration of financial stability and consumer protection in regulation.

Speed of adoption and standardization

speakers

– Jirayut Srupsrisopa
РMarc Bayle de Jess̩

arguments

Thailand has advanced regulation and adoption of tokenization, especially for real estate

Adoption has been slow due to need for clear use cases and regulatory frameworks

summary

Jirayut Srupsrisopa highlights rapid adoption and regulation in Thailand, while Marc Bayle de Jessé suggests that adoption has been slow due to the need for clear use cases and regulatory frameworks.

Unexpected Differences

Importance of speed in financial markets

speakers

– Jeremy Allaire
РMarc Bayle de Jess̩

arguments

Tokenization of private credit has huge potential to transform lending

The premise of a lot of those use cases is that faster is better, usually. It’s not always true in the financial markets.

explanation

While Jeremy Allaire emphasizes the potential of tokenization to transform lending quickly, Marc Bayle de Jessé unexpectedly argues that faster is not always better in financial markets, particularly in areas like FX settlement where netting is important.

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the pace and approach to regulation, the speed of adoption and standardization, and the importance of speed in financial markets.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is moderate. While there is general agreement on the potential of tokenization, there are significant differences in views on how to approach regulation and implementation. These differences reflect the complex nature of integrating new technologies into established financial systems and highlight the challenges in balancing innovation with stability and consumer protection. The implications of these disagreements suggest that the path forward for tokenization may involve a careful negotiation between different stakeholders to find a balanced approach that fosters innovation while addressing regulatory concerns.

Partial Agreements

All speakers agree on the need for regulation, but differ on the specifics. Allaire advocates for light-touch regulation, Doudin emphasizes flexibility, and Srupsrisopa stresses the importance of standardization across jurisdictions.

speakers

– Jeremy Allaire
– Ola Doudin
– Jirayut Srupsrisopa

arguments

Light-touch regulation with basic safeguards is needed to foster innovation

Comprehensive but flexible regulation is important to allow businesses to operate profitably

Standardization of regulations across jurisdictions is crucial

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers advocate for a balanced regulatory approach that allows for innovation while providing necessary safeguards.

speakers

– Jeremy Allaire
– Ola Doudin

arguments

Light-touch regulation with basic safeguards is needed to foster innovation

Comprehensive but flexible regulation is important to allow businesses to operate profitably

Both speakers see tokenization as a means to improve and expand financial services, particularly in lending and trade financing.

speakers

– Jeremy Allaire
– Jirayut Srupsrisopa

arguments

Tokenization of private credit has huge potential to transform lending

Tokenization can help bank the unbanked and improve trade financing

Key Takeaways

Tokenization of assets is progressing, with stablecoins being the largest current use case

Real estate tokenization is seen as a major opportunity, especially in the Middle East and Thailand

Tokenization has potential to improve capital markets, lending, and financial inclusion

Regulatory clarity and standardization across jurisdictions is needed for the industry to scale

Light-touch regulation that allows for innovation while providing basic safeguards is recommended

Technical challenges around scalability, interoperability and user experience need to be addressed

Resolutions and Action Items

None identified

Unresolved Issues

How to achieve standardization of regulations across different jurisdictions

How to balance innovation with financial stability and consumer protection

How monetary policy and economic cycles would be managed in a fully tokenized financial system

Whether there is true market demand for tokenized real estate beyond existing products like REITs

Suggested Compromises

Implementing light-touch regulation with basic safeguards to allow innovation while providing some oversight

Using tokenization to enhance existing financial products and systems rather than fully replacing them

I think from a financial industry perspective, there are a couple of megatrends that are already going on in the world. So, one is the shift from bank credit to private credit… I actually think one of the largest and most exciting opportunities is the tokenization of private credit, and effectively enable people whose job it is to figure out if someone is creditworthy.

speaker

Jeremy Allaire

reason

This comment introduces a novel perspective on how tokenization could fundamentally reshape credit markets, moving beyond just digitizing existing assets.

impact

It shifted the conversation from discussing current use cases to exploring potential future applications of tokenization that could disrupt traditional financial systems.

The premise of a lot of those use cases is that faster is better, usually. It’s not always true in the financial markets. When you have deep markets with a lot of transactions which are done within a short timeframe, typically within a day, let’s say, in particular true in the FX market, where you buy and sell the same currencies to create depth in the market and liquidity, you want to net those activities to one payment at the end of the day so that you don’t create problem on the access to liquidity.

speaker

Marc Bayle de Jessé

reason

This comment challenges the common assumption that faster transactions are always better, providing a nuanced view of financial market operations.

impact

It introduced complexity to the discussion by highlighting potential drawbacks of tokenization in certain market contexts, prompting a more balanced consideration of its applications.

I think in the Middle East you definitely see governments, businesses, and consumers embracing tokenization… There’s definitely high demand to tokenize dollars, particularly when it comes to, I would say, countries or economies where there’s high inflation rates, and to some extent I would say clunky payment systems where stable coins can be leveraged for that.

speaker

Ola Doudin

reason

This comment provides specific regional insights and practical use cases for tokenization, particularly in emerging markets.

impact

It broadened the discussion beyond theoretical applications to real-world adoption, especially in regions facing economic challenges.

We need to humanize the experiences so that people in Asia can use the technology without them knowing that they are even using the technology. And I think tokenization has a big potential to bank the unbanked with a phone that is connected to the internet.

speaker

Jirayut Srupsrisopa

reason

This comment highlights the importance of user experience and accessibility in driving widespread adoption of tokenization.

impact

It shifted the focus of the discussion towards practical considerations for mass adoption and the potential social impact of tokenization.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by expanding it beyond current applications of tokenization to explore its potential to reshape financial systems, particularly in emerging markets. They introduced nuanced perspectives on both the opportunities and challenges of tokenization, considering factors such as market dynamics, regional adoption, and user experience. The discussion evolved from a focus on technical aspects to a broader consideration of tokenization’s societal and economic impacts.

How can we standardize regulations and technology for tokenization across different jurisdictions?

speaker

Jirayut Srupsrisopa

explanation

Standardization is crucial for the scalability and interoperability of tokenization technology across borders, which is necessary for its widespread adoption and effectiveness.

How can we humanize the user experience of tokenization technology to achieve mass adoption?

speaker

Jirayut Srupsrisopa

explanation

Making the technology user-friendly and accessible to the general public is essential for widespread adoption and utilization of tokenized assets.

What are the potential impacts of tokenization on monetary policy and economic cycle management?

speaker

Audience member (macroeconomist)

explanation

Understanding the macroeconomic implications of widespread tokenization and decentralized finance is crucial for policymakers and economists to prepare for potential shifts in financial systems.

How can we balance innovation and regulatory responsibilities in the tokenization space?

speaker

Xin Guan (moderator)

explanation

Finding the right balance between allowing innovation and ensuring market stability and consumer protection is key for the sustainable growth of the tokenization industry.

What are the specific use cases and market demand for tokenized real estate beyond existing financial instruments like ETFs or REITs?

speaker

Audience member

explanation

Understanding the unique value proposition and market demand for tokenized real estate is important to justify its development and adoption.

How can tokenization address the $2.5 trillion trade financing gap, particularly for smaller companies?

speaker

Jirayut Srupsrisopa

explanation

Exploring how tokenization can improve access to trade financing for smaller companies could have significant economic impacts and address a major market inefficiency.