Allaire: ‘We Are at the Beginning of Tokenization of Everything’

Earlier Wednesday, Jeremy Allaire, co-founder and CEO of payments company Circle discussed an unprecedented “crypto-revolution,” CoinTelegraph reported, saying global society is “at the beginning of a tokenization of everything.”

Just as the early internet transformed data and communications, Allaire said, blockchain is now poised to revolutionize “every aspect of finance” and “reinvent public and civil services in [its] image,” the report said.

He continued: “Once you have an open global immutable record-keeping system, [a] transaction-processing system and [a] secure computing environment, you can re-conceptualize on a global basis every aspect of finance… corporate and commercial law, the intermediation of contracts, [and] crucially all of the systems we use in [both corporate and civic] decision making.”

In his vision, Allaire outlined a vision of a tokenized global economy and society, in which “every form of value storage and public record becomes a crypto-token” that has free-floating market value and can be traded on global digital exchanges, CoinTelegraph reported.

He foresees a world with crypto-assets where owners can “tokenize your house, car or art,” and establish open global financial relationships around any physical property, the report said.

The “tokenization of private or public votes in all forms of social governance” would offer an immutable system more transparent and accountable than current models, the report said.

Allaire outlined five categories of crypto-assets, the report said, beginning with privacy-focused cryptocurrencies that remove financial activities from the centralized control of governments and serve as “a public good” on the internet.

So-called ‘crypto-securities’ can represent rule-based financial contracts, CoinTelegraph reported, and have a potential that goes “far beyond” a paper contract mediated by a law firm in court. He emphasized that lot of initial coin offerings (ICOs) come under this category.

But Allaire also addressed crypto-assets that support transaction settlement systems, such as Ripple (XRP) and Stellar (XLM), as well as very ambitious” blockchain-based platforms such as Ethereum (ETH), which he characterized as “operating systems for the global economy,” the report said.  

Allaire’s last category of crypto-assets were fiat-backed stable coins, the report said, designed for denominating financial contracts. Allaire noted use cases that require a less volatile price baseline, but still seek the decentralization and security of blockchain.

Just last month, Circle closed a $110 million fundraising round led by mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain to partner on the development of a US dollar-backed stable coin, CoinTelegraph reported. Circle’s USDC will be an ERC-20 token based on the Ethereum network, and will reportedly be released by Circle in the summer. The investment brought Circle’s valuation to nearly $3 billion, an almost sixfold increase since 2016, the report said.

– WN.com, Jack Durschlag