5 Takeaways From Our Joint Meetup With bitFlyer and LHoFT on Tokenization

It’s been a whirlwind of a month here at VNX Exchange but we still wanted to bring you some exciting insights into our latest event.

Anton Abashkin, our COO, spoke at an illuminating panel titled “10 Years of Bitcoin… What’s Next?” alongside Andy Bryant, bitFlyer Europe COO, and David Carlisle, Head of Community at Elliptic.

The Feb. 6 meetup was a joint event between bitFlyer Europe, the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology and VNX Exchange. It became the largest meetup to date that bitFlyer organized in Luxembourg.

Here’s what you need to know

1. Tokenization is going mainstream

Tokenization is quite a big deal. If you talk to people in the financial industry, they’re all trying to tokenize everything: from airplanes to houses, ships, cars, you name it. If your imagination is working well, you can tokenize almost anything. A lot of companies are rushing into the space.

This increased interest in tokenization is not merely attracting hype. It has opened up crypto and blockchain industries to traditional financial investors and existing financial institutions.

2. Tokenization isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, it’s important to tokenize the right assets

Almost anything these days can be tokenized. But if you are a serious investor looking to receive substantial returns on the funds you have put in, it is important to invest in instruments backed by tangible and solid assets. In case of VNX Exchange, it’s venture capital funds’ startup portfolios.

There is a huge interest from many different investors, including institutional investors, high-net-worth individuals and retail investors to having exposure to assets that yield high returns.

Instead of investing into unregulated, ungoverned ICOs, where risk for your money is substantial, why not invest into startups that have been funded by reputable VC firms? You could be investing into the next Uber or Facebook!

3. Regulation is key to the future of tokenization and safe investing into tokenized assets

Tokenization may be en vogue these days but without proper regulation it cannot offer a safe path to investing.

So where are all the regulated exchanges? We’re building one! VNX is actively working to get a license from the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier in Luxembourg.

Many governments these days are making headways in ensuring proper regulation of trading tokenized assets and blockchain use. Since the meetup, for example, Luxembourg’s parliament has approved the legal framework for the use of blockchain technology in financial services. It now provides transactions via blockchain the same legal status as those carried out by traditional means, Luxembourg Times reported. Check out the full article here to read about how VNX is leading the trend in Luxembourg.

4. Mainstream adoption of tokenization is on its way

Mainstream institutional adoption is a major hurdle for widespread acceptance of tokenization but it’s still within reach. There are many positive developments in the security token space that are cause for optimism for the fintech community and major financial institutions.

Some of the larger financial and traditional institutions are looking towards a real adoption plan. They are getting out of the sandbox and introducing products and services that give access to digital and crypto assets to their vast customer base. This will be a major game changer for the entire financial market and for the blockchain and crypto supporters. It will open many doors: entrepreneurs will come up with innovative use cases and business models for tokenization. This is just a beginning. Once the “big guys” adopt this trend, tokenization will grow really big.

“Once you have this notion of security tokenization combined with smart contracts, you actually open a vast segment of the economy to investment which was previously not possible,” said Andy Bryant, COO, bitFlyer Europe.

5. The number of successful tokenization use cases will grow

VNX Exchange is a perfect example of how tokenization can be used to solve a tangible problem.

VNX tokenizes venture capital funds’ startup portfolios and creates a secondary market where anybody can buy a piece of the next Airbnb or Facebook. Our marketplace makes venture capital available to all. It also solves a fundamental problem for VCs whose portfolios get tokenized. In exchange for tokenization of their assets, venture firms get proceeds from the token sale on our marketplace.

We’re walking proof that tokenization can offer great investment opportunities and solve real market problems.