The Tokenised Economy and the Law

Rezensionen / Stimmen

'The new book, The Tokenised Economy and the Law, by Riccardo de Caria, is a much needed addition to the literature given the rise of digital assets. The creation of value produced initially by cryptocurrencies set up a framework for new digital markets going forward. More recently, the creation, marketing and selling of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) holds the potential for robust future markets in such tokens. The increase in different types of digital assets, which is likely to accelerate, demands the creation of a legal framework to build trust in these assets and to provide legal redress in cases of abuse and harm. This framework is important due to the transborder nature of tokens. De Caria provides just such a framework or taxonomy that will benefit those trying to understand the intersection of law and technology. The regulation of tokens is examined through the traditional lenses of currency, property, contract, corporate, and investment or securities law. Plausible arguments can be made for the application of all these areas of law in the regulation of tokens. But this presents a problem of uncertainty if different countries choose various paths to understanding and regulating tokens. In the end, de Caria does an excellent job in providing a taxonomy of tokens and how they are viewed at legislative, regulatory and academic levels. He astutely suggests that the initial step in dealing with tokens in legal systems will come from private law seeing them as contractual in nature, as well as a form of property, but in the long-term more specialized rules will be needed due to the inherently public law nature of such transborder artefacts. An example is provided in that decentralized ledger technology (blockchain) challenges the traditional concept of state sovereignty, thus disrupting our century-old legal paradigms. In the end, state's will assert their sovereignty as digital assets markets grow in value and importance. Sovereignty will seek to impose order and prevent abuse in such markets. The taxonomies discussed in The Tokenised Economy and the Law provide a framework to begin thinking about the intersection of sovereignty and regulation with these present and future markets.' -- Larry A. DiMatteo, University of Florida, USA