Asset tokenization is how any real-world asset, tangible or intangible becomes digitized, and then broken down into smaller parts which take the form of tokens. In the broad sense, a token is basically the representation of something else, and in this case, every token represents a proportional part of the digitized asset, which also means, the owner of the token possesses the associated ownership rights or other types of rights. The possibilities of tokenization are endless, and in Brickken we like to say that the world can be tokenized, as what can be digitized and broken down in smaller parts can literally be anything, from physical assets such as real estate, art, scarce and valuable resources, to financial instruments such as debt, equity, bonds, securities, among others.
So now you must be wondering how Security Token Offerings and asset tokenization are related. Well, the answer is very simple, because once you have digitized an asset and broken it down in as many parts as needed which take the form of tokens (asset tokenization), you then execute an offering so anyone in the world, at any time, can acquire these issued tokens (Security Token Offerings). The reason why it receives this name, Security Token Offering, is because blockchain technology is used, and the creation of these specific types of tokens which run on smart contracts is only possible on blockchain. Tokens and smarts contracts are something that we will analyze in the section “Blockchain technology and asset tokenization”.
Now that we have linked both concepts, we can now explain what the benefits of asset tokenization are, being one of its biggest benefits the possibility of tearing down entry barriers for retail investors, such as high tickets to invest. Let us set an example to further explain what we mean by this.
An investor might be looking into entering the real estate market and studying a building which costs one million euros. The investor knows that the building is in a prime location which value can only increase in the coming years. The entry ticket is extremely high, so either he has great liquidity to invest, or collateral to obtain a loan from a bank to invest in the property. These two factors, besides being a barrier, can become problems for this investor. On one hand, deploying large amounts of capital can provide problems in the future in case he needs liquidity, and on the other hand, entering debt instruments, means you enter a in debt position, which adds the further constraint on having to pay interests on top of the solicited money, and having to pay back everything in an established term.
With asset tokenization, the building can be broken in as many parts as needed, so the one million euro building now is represented with 10,000 tokens worth 100 € each. This entry ticket is more suitable for the investor, and he does not have to go into debt or perform magic tricks to obtain the capital to invest on what he deems as a profitable investment. With this small entry ticket, he now has access to invest and decides to buy 100 tokens to obtain profitability proportionally to how the 1-million-euro building performs.
The performance of the building can be linked to it being leased or rented, thus obtaining profits on a recurring basis, which are distributed among the token holders, or because the building does a flip, by which the building enters some remodeling works to increment its value and sell at a higher position, and the earnings become distributed among the token owners. These are just examples on how the building can become exploited, but there are many other manners by which a building can become profitable for the investors. The only important thing to bear in mind is that no matter what model is used for obtaining profits, the importance is that these are distributed proportionally among the token owners.
To show an example, we broke the 1 million euro building in 10,000 blocks, but in reality, you can actually break the building in 1 million tokens worth 1 euro each to further reduce the entry ticket. In this case, people will have to assess if they would rather have a coffee in their favorite cafeteria or buy a token and obtain capital gains based on the performance of the real-world asset digitized and tokenized.
As we can see, asset tokenization is the mechanism by which you provide access to anyone by opening markets that seem unreachable. Nonetheless, this is not the only benefit that exists when using asset tokenization. The fact that in order to execute an asset tokenization you need to use blockchain technology, this creates a wide range of benefits. It is now time to talk about how the disruption of asset tokenization translates to benefits for the market.
Without a doubt, the possibility of reducing entry barriers, and breaking a real-world asset in as many parts as needed which take the form of tokens which can be acquired by anyone, anywhere, and at any time, is the most disrupting benefit. Nonetheless, it is not the only advantage, so let us recapitulate and further explain how asset tokenization is a game changer:
Having explained what asset tokenization is and what are its benefits, we can now jump over and explain why Brickken was founded, and why we consider ourselves the new era of investment.
Brickken was founded on the idea that asset tokenization is possible through Security Token Offerings, and that by using this specific type of technology and business model, it becomes the bridge between asset owners and investors. The main idea is to disrupt the financial sector and become the new era of investment. Currently, people have very few options to deploy their capital, they either must rely on debt instruments or equity, which are high risk and can be very volatile, or store their money in a savings account providing them with almost 0% in interest. Therefore, it was necessary to provide access so that anyone could invest in assets such as real estate, art, or valuable and scarce resources whose value increases over time; they are profitable instruments and due to their intrinsic characteristics, are less volatile than debt and equity instruments.
In a few words, we have established that Brickken’s goal is to open new markets to the world through asset tokenization. In the same manner that companies go through Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) to obtain liquidity, and offer dividends to its shareholders, the same can occur with assets, and instead of obtaining dividends, they obtain the proportional profit coming from the performance of the digitized asset.
Furthermore, and due to the use of blockchain technology, we will bring efficiency to the market by providing automatization, transparency, traceability, and a platform running 24/7 where asset owners and investors can interact with each other. Asset tokenization should be about frictionless transactions, and this has always been one of our building blocks.
Our journey may have just begun, but our roadmap is to completely disrupt the financial sector. Asset tokenization is just the beginning, as many new models and possibilities can be built on top of it. Brickken has a clear roadmap as to how it can successfully become the new era of investment, and it all begins by becoming a trust source for asset tokenization. In order to become in said trust source, it is important that we safeguard the end-to-end process of asset tokenization, from the digitization of the asset to the issuance of the corresponding tokens which are done through a Security Token Offering. Let us begin by explaining how an asset tokenization is performed, and what Brickken does to safeguard the process and provide trust to both, the asset owners, and the investors.
Brickken has established a thorough process for the asset tokenization to occur. The way it was established was to provide certainty and trust to all the potential buyers of the different tokens. When someone wants to tokenize an asset of theirs, in order for it to be broken down into small parts or tokens which can be acquired by anyone, they must first engage Brickken’s management team in order to see the viability of the tokenization. So, let us go over the different steps that are needed for an asset to be tokenized.
First, the asset itself must be analyzed. It is quite different to tokenized real estate, than a painting or scarce and valuable resource like gold. In the example of gold, there is already a market for it, so its value and validity are well established in the market, but what happens if someone wants to tokenize a vintage car. In this case, there needs to be a valuation done on the vintage car to establish its correct price, which will be used to peg the tokens to it.
Brickken’s issuance of tokens are in the form of stable coins, which are cryptocurrencies that are pegged to a stable asset, which in this example would be the vintage car valued by an independent expert. Stable coins differ from other types of coins, since they are less volatile as they are pegged to a hard asset, which greatly reduces the risk factor of volatile movements which occur in other types of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or shares of a company.
Once the valuation is done, the smart contract must be created, something that will be explained more thoroughly in the “Blockchain technology and asset tokenization” section The price and number of tokens should correspond to the price and valuation of the asset. Furthermore, it must be decided what business model is going to govern the issuance of the token, for example if the objective is a loan, or to divide the asset in a co-ownership model or of cession of rights. Also, the rights that the investors will be obtaining must be defined in the terms and conditions which will be incorporated in the token itself.
This previous step is what people have defined as tokenomics, the science of the token economy. This science covers all the aspects of the token creation, from its management to its usage. In Brickken’s case, tokenomics is applied to how the smart contract is generated, as it must be input how many tokens will exist, what will be their issuance value, and what are the established benefits that will attract the investors; for example, is the asset owner giving equity and rights or is he going for a profit sharing/cash flow scenario?
Until now, we have established how asset tokenization works from a technical and economical perspective, but what about its legality? This is the next step to deal with when working with asset tokenization, the legal framework must be established. Some of the questions that need to be answered when setting up the legal structure are related to the asset itself, as to where it is located, who is going to be responsible for its auditing and valuation, under what conditions, what are the guarantees given from the asset owner in order to protect the investments made by all the token buyers, who is going to be responsible for managing the assets, etc.
This is probably one of the most important factors that Brickken covers, setting up the legal framework of asset tokenization. This is not only needed to protect the interests of the investors, but also, for a frictionless transaction to occur, so the asset owner can receive the requested funds to exploit their assets in the most simplistic possible way. Brickken takes care of all the contracts that are needed, and in the same manner that one of our most important pillars is the customer experience, we have transferred our simple customer journey for buying tokens, to how the legality of the asset tokenization must be executed.
Lastly, and as we have previously stated, Brickken wants to become the new of investment, and for it to occur it needs to become a trust source for both the asset owners and the investors. For this reason, Brickken is continuously studying what are the applicable legislations, applying internal processes to be compliant, engaging different working groups to further understand the current situation of Security Token Offerings and asset tokenization, and mainly, just understanding what it needs to do in order to comply with the law.
Once we have established what is tokenomics and how Brickken covers legality factor, the final step for asset tokenization to occur would be the launch of the token in Brickken’s platform. Once it goes live, anyone can sign up and join the platform to begin buying tokens and start earning passive income. We will be analyzing the process of buying tokens in the following section.
To invest in tokenized assets in an efficient manner it is required to have access to a specialist team that masters the right technology, who is fully compliant with law and that prioritizes investor protection at all costs. Brickken is the only company that gathers these criteria: a specialist team with a wealth of experience in investing in real assets, the right legal acumen to protect all its investors and be fully compliant with law, and a team of technology experts that have designed, built, and launched a revolutionary platform that bridges asset owners and investors all over the world.
Brickken is the leading investment platform in tokenized assets. Through our platform, you would be able to invest in an array of different assets classes with different risk and return profiles that meet your investment appetite. You can invest in real estate such as residential, industrial, or commercial property; invest in famous paintings from well-known artists; or even invest in infrastructure projects like renewable energy assets. New markets from all over the world are opening before your eyes.
To be able to access all these investments, you firstly need to join the Brickken community and carry out the onboarding process.
In Brickken, our priority is the protection of our community of investors. To ensure this, every new user must undergo a rigorous Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) process. Simply register as a new investor in our platform and follow the instructions, provide the required documentation, and wait for one of our team members to get you approved. Since legality is of the utmost importance to us, we have established this rigorous process in case a public regulatory organism requests information or audits Brickken to establish its compliance with the law. All the information requested is what the law requests, we do not add further constraints to what is strictly needed.
Since we will be picking up your information, this is of paramount importance to us and we follow the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) procedures to protect your personal data. Therefore, we have established internal processes guided towards protection and safeguarding your personal information.
Once your account has been verified and approved you are ready to invest in tokenized assets. Brickken has developed a platform that accepts both, fiat, and cryptocurrencies. In case you want to transact in fiat, complete your bank account details and start investing with as little as €100. We work with a rigorous Point of Sale (POS) provider, to safeguard your money. In case you want to interact with cryptocurrencies, complete your Know Your Customer procedure, and we will provide you with the wallet where the money should go. Here in Brickken, we want to provide as many possibilities as possible to our investors for them to participate in the revolution of the financial industry.
To start investing in tokenized assets you do not need large amounts of capital. You can start investing in assets that would otherwise be only accessible to institutional investors such as large corporations or investment banks. You can now become an investor in an office building in cities like New York, London, or Madrid, or you can become one of the owners of one of your favorite artist’s artworks. Perhaps you would like to be part of the green revolution and start investing in solar farms in the south of Spain or Italy and receive regular dividends from the sale of your investment’s green energy sales.
The best part of this is that you can start with as little as €100. As we have established in the “What is asset tokenization” section, tokenization allows to split each of these assets in as many parts as needed which take the form of tokens, hence allowing every investor to access countless new markets across the world.
It is of the utmost importance for Brickken to become a source of trust, and therefore we have established a thorough process on what can be tokenized and how the asset tokenization must be performed. Please review the “Process of asset tokenization” section to further understand what Brickken does to protect the investors.
Lastly, it is important to establish that we further protect the investor, by not having access to any of the money deposited in the platform. This money is held in a wallet created for each investor by our Point of Sale (POS) provider, which has an electronic money license to operate.
As mentioned above, investor protection is a paramount priority at Brickken. To protect each investor’s capital, your money will be deposited in an Escrow Account.
An Escrow is an instrument whereby investors’ money will be held by an independent third party that will keep the capital safe until a transaction is completed. In other words, your capital will never be deposited in Brickken’s accounts. As we previously explained, Brickken does not have access to any of the deposited capital in the platform and is held by a regulated entity which is authorized to handle electronic payments. This same entity is the one providing the escrow account.
The Escrow accounts will receive and hold safe all investors’ capital until the target capital raise has been met and the target asset’s due diligence has been completed. If both criteria are met, then the money is released to the corresponding asset owner, and the investors receive their corresponding tokens.
As we have established in the “Process of asset tokenization” section, each asset available in Brickken’s platform has undergone a strict due diligence process.
Due diligence is the process by which each asset available undergoes a thorough investigation to corroborate that all the facts, details characteristics of the target investment are factually accurate. The list of fields that are investigated under a due diligence process could involve the following: financial, tax and accounting audit; revision of future performance forecasts; analysis of market competition; legal investigation of the asset’s contracts, potential or ongoing litigations and evaluation of existing subcontractors or other third-party relationships; technical revision of the assets’ components to ensure there are, among others, no existing structural damages, incorrect construction, risks, etc. (the list is not exhaustive and differs depending on the asset under consideration).
The due diligence process is critical to ensure that the target financial returns (whether in the form of capital gains or dividends or cash distributions) of the asset are as accurate as possible and risks to investors are minimized.
Brickken will make multiple investment opportunities available to its users, across different asset classes, each with different characteristics and different risk-to-return profiles. Therefore, it is important that each potential investor carefully reads the target asset’s documentation and understands the investment’s characteristics such as the recommended holding period, the asset’s target return, the risks associated with the target returns, the form of these returns (e.g., whether regular distributions or a capital gain at exit), rights and obligations to each investor, etc.
Since investors will be acquiring tokens representing a proportional part of a given asset, they can interact with these tokens by acquiring more from other token owners or selling them to third parties. We are using ERC20 tokens which allow the investors to withdraw their tokens from the platform, and store them in their personal wallets, or use them to interact in other platforms or markets. Our goal is to provide endless possibilities to our investors, so please review the “Blockchain technology and asset tokenization” section to learn about technology and the ERC20 token.
Brickken believes in full alignment of interests between parties. Therefore, to ensure that each investor’s interests are completely aligned with Brickken’s own interests, Brickken will effectively be the asset manager and charge an annual fee in the form of percentage over the asset’s revenues.
This way, it is in Brickken’s interest to maximize the asset’s revenues, which at the same time maximizes distributions to investors. As revenues are maximized, profits will most likely be highest as well, hence generating higher free cash flows that can then be distributed to each token owner. Furthermore, assets that generate higher free cash flows also are more valuable to potential buyers and would result in an increase in the asset’s Enterprise Value. A higher Enterprise Value will increase the asset’s sale price in the case of an exit, hence also increasing a potential capital gain to investors.
As we have said before, tokenization is the process of splitting a real-world asset into tiny smart digital pieces called tokens. Each token is a digital representation of an asset’s portion. The benefit in doing this is the ability to transfer, buy and sell those tokens and prove ownership of them. Doing that, any real-world asset can be used to create new market opportunities. In the last few years, blockchain technology has gained traction and now it is the widely adopted solution to run tokenization. The main advantage of using blockchain is to benefit from the security and levels of transparency it intrinsically brings.
Blockchain technology can be thought for our purposes as a public shared ledger where everyone is able to write and check transactions. Tokenization in blockchain happens using smart contracts. Smart contracts are little executable applications that reside in the shared ledger and execute their programmed instructions whenever they are triggered by a transaction happening in the blockchain.
Each token has associated its smart contract that has all the instructions to manage any aspect of the token: tracking balances, performing transfers, allowing spenders and any functionality that can be optionally added.
Currently, one of the biggest public blockchain existing is Ethereum, which forged the concept of smart contracts, and it is the widely adopted platform for its use in modern applications. At the time of writing, according to etherscan there are more than 300.000 smart contracts associated with one different token each.
To guarantee compatibility between all this tokens several standards have been created. If a token’s smart contract is fixed on a standard, developers can build applications which apply to all the tokens adhering to the same standard enabling full compatibility. Typical Ethereum token standards are ERC20 and ERC721 (respectively fungible and non-fungible tokens).
At Brickken, we use blockchain technology to run tokenizations and we adhere to the main standards adopted by the widest community. We offer options to run both on public and/or private blockchain, both supporting the same standards. We also work with non-Ethereum compatible blockchains like Stellar. With our technology, any real-world asset can be bound to a token smart contract defining several tokens in which the asset is split into. These tokens can be sold, bought, transferred, deposited, and withdrawn in and from the platform. Tokens related to one asset can be exchanged for tokens associated with a completely different asset, opening the doors to a lot of new market possibilities. All the system is running in a scalable and robust platform, simplifying, and reducing the friction that users feel when using blockchain applications.
Our goal is to provide a tool that can create new paths and flows in the market using tokenization as a bridge between real-world assets and digital business opportunities. We have a robust technology and simplified process, so that our clients do not have to worry about how it works, or the security of the transactions, they only must think about obtaining those passive gains associated with the token and the performance of the real-world asset digitized and tokenized. We have created a very intuitive user interface which makes it amazingly simple to buy and sell tokens. With a couple of clicks, you can join the new era of investment, and enjoy the benefits of asset tokenization.
Asset tokenization of real estate consists of taking a property and dividing it into small pieces with equal rights and value. It is in a way similar to taking a private business and have it undergone an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the stock market.
When you take a private business public, it means that anyone in the world can acquire the company shares, which is how the company is divided and there are usually thousands of it. Each share has the same rights and value than the other shares. In other words, each share represents the same level of ownership of the company. An investor can acquire these shares and become an owner of the company. By becoming an owner of the company, the investor will have a right to the company’s profits and shall receive these in the form of dividends.
Asset tokenization of real estate assets is very much alike to taking a private business public. An investor can acquire tokens of a property and become an owner of the tokenized property in the proportion of tokens acquired from all the tokens available. By acquiring these tokens, the investor will have a right to the property’s profits, which will then be distributed to all token owners on a pro-rata basis. For instance, if you own 1% of a tokenized property, you will receive 1% of the property’s profits on a periodic basis.
So, how does asset tokenization for real estate assets work?
The process of tokenizing a real estate asset is fully compliant with law and it is nothing sort of new. The underlying concept of acquiring a property between more than one people is quite common to everyone. Tokenization simply adds a technologic layer to this concept. Said differently, the wheel has not been reinvented here.
For instance, three brothers and sisters can decide to buy a house between them. They can decide to rent it to someone else and split the profits accordingly. That is literally the underlying concept.
The main issue (pain) with this approach is the rigidity dominating the entire process. You need to find the asset you want to acquire, but this asset must be on sale (you cannot force a property owner into selling). You need to find the people with whom you will be acquiring the asset and you will need the capital to acquire the asset. The limitations are obvious; you need a significant amount of capital to acquire a property, you need to know people with enough capital as well, and you need to trust them sufficiently to do business with them. The last thing you want is to put your hard-earned savings in the hands of someone that could jeopardize the entire investment.
Another issue is clearing the credit process with the bank to secure the mortgage. The more people there are in this process, the more complex the mortgage becomes. There could potentially be issues of severability between parties, i.e., if one of the investors defaults on his payments, the remainder will have to cover for them, or the bank will take the property.
The more complications that arise, the smaller the investment universe becomes. If you do not have the capital you will need a smaller investment and if you do not know the market, it becomes more expensive to do the research or find someone to do it for you. Want to diversify your investing in markets in different countries adds further constraints to the process.
Furthermore, each investor will have a duty of responsibility to the remaining investors. Someone will have to deal with the bills, the maintenance, the need to find the right tenants for the property (real estate owners know this is not as simple), etc. Alternatively, you can pay someone to do this for you, but this will eat into your profits.
As just explained above, investing in real estate assets is therefore rigid and illiquid. Tokenization adds a new dimension to the process described above. Tokenization transforms the investment process by making it flexible and accessible to everyone. As described in “What is asset tokenization”, tokenization involves dividing a property into multiple pieces with the same rights and value, in hundreds or even thousands of pieces.
Tokenization resolves all the issues/pains described above at once. You do not need so much capital to be able to invest in real estate assets, since each asset is divided into many pieces, each one with the same value and rights. You need much less capital to acquire one of these pieces or tokens.
Since the process is completely automated, you do not need to worry about finding all the remaining investors, this is done by Brickken doing the tokenization. Since the process is compliant with law in the first place, you do not need to worry about who the remaining investors are. Each one will have the same rights but also the same obligations, if one of them fails in their obligations, Brickken will intervene and force this investor in fulfilling his duties or legal action will be taken against him. This is also true for the entity receiving the funding in case they default or do not fulfil their obligations, Brickken would initiate the corresponding legal actions.
Brickken and its asset tokenization process, makes it easier for liquidity to exist in the real estate market, by allowing new investors to come into play, while protecting the end-to-end process. Therefore, we consider ourselves the new era of investment.
As it has been established throughout these sections, Brickken’s ultimate goal is to open new markets to the world. We can only achieve so by being transparent and therefore we have created this webpage, in order for anyone to understand who we are, how we execute an asset tokenization and how we protect the investors and the asset owners.
Our joint expertise has enabled us to create this state-of-the-art service, which will disrupt the financial sector, by becoming a new possibility of funding for different projects, but also, by allowing anyone to obtain capital gains in ways they did not seem possible.
We have begun this journey with a solid structure covering the financial, legal and technology aspects of asset tokenization, and we will continue it being always compliant, understanding the different sectors we will be engaging, and being up to date on technology and legality, so we can continue being a trust source for Security Token Offerings to occur.
Brickken is the combination of the right team, the right network and partners, a solid knowledge and expertise which is the reason why it will become the new era of investment.
Get ready for your Tokenization with the Brickken Experts ecosystem.
Create and deploy your Token within few clicks and launch your first Token Offering to attract new investors personas and reduce your investment cycle duration.
Verify investors anywhere in the world with ease. Smooth onboarding and compliance have finally come together.
A fully customizable and easy Token Store Builder to Create a Token Sales dApp in Minutes. Create a home for your Investors.
Get all the tools and integrations you need for investor relationship management, and corporate actions automation. Each feature is powerful alone, but the real magic happens when you use them together.