What is a real world asset

Five thousand years ago, in Mesopotamia, scribes pressed their styluses into fresh clay to record that so-and-so owed so many measures of barley to someone else. The tablet dried, it was stored away, and from then on the debt existed outside human memory. The whole history of ownership lies in that gesture. A thing has value, someone holds the right to it, and that right must be recorded somewhere in order to be enforceable against others. The grain stayed in the granary. The tablet, however, could travel.

Real World Assets extend this very old story. They ask the same question as the scribe, with a new tool. Where should the right be recorded, who keeps the ledger, and how can the right circulate without moving the thing itself.

A definition through the ledger

An asset is a good or a right from which value, income or use is expected. A house, a bond, a share in a company, a tonne of copper, a receivable owed by a customer. For centuries these assets have been tracked in ledgers kept by trusted third parties: the notary and the land registry for real estate, the account keeper and the central securities depository for securities, the bank for deposits, the commercial court registry for company shares.