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A couple of big issues stand in the way of real-world asset tokenization, according to the chief executive of the global investment management giant VanEck.<\/p>\n
In a new interview with Raoul Pal, VanEck CEO Jan van Eck says<\/a> that liquidity is a \u201cbig issue\u201d for tokenization.<\/p>\n \u201cWho provides the liquidity? Anyone can theoretically tokenize anything. But if there\u2019s a buyer and a seller of an asset, someone\u2019s got to make that market. <\/em><\/p>\n And you think, \u2018Oh, Jan, S&P 500 \u2013 it\u2019s so obvious. So easy to price.\u2019 But someone has to make a market in it, and someone\u2019s got to make money making a market in it, so it\u2019s not just that [someone] can create a tokenized real-world asset of anything, it\u2019s who\u2019s providing the market structure around the liquidity.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Van Eck says the second big issue with real-world tokenization is figuring out where to make a market without a \u201cregulatory headache.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn the world today, you\u2019re not doing that in the United States. That\u2019s fine. My bet is on Europe just because it\u2019s got a large retail market as well as having a regulatory structure that enables crypto investing and trading.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Van Eck is one of 11 firms that received approval<\/a> from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch a spot Bitcoin (BTC<\/a>) exchange-traded fund earlier this month.<\/p>\n