Tokenization: just token gestures?
An interesting article in The Atlantic, “The financialization of everything”, explores some of the possibilities of social tokenization, the process of monetizing oneself and selling tokens to others in return for certain things. In the case described, a young man with a certain level of social capital sells tokens for a retweet from him, a conversation or an introduction to somebody in his network. Apart from the ethical questions it raises, surely this aspect of tokenization is unsustainable, given that it contractualizes all the possible nuances that I have always understood social activity should involve
The article provides a reasonable explanation of the tokenization phenomenon: a concept as simple as taking any asset, tangible or intangible, fragmenting it virtually into bits, and assigning those virtual bits univocally and irreversibly to transactions on a blockchain, and linking them to smart contracts that describe the asset and the rights granted by its possession.
From that reasonably easy to understand concept, we can make bits and sell anything we can think of. My friend Carlos Domingo, for example, started Securitize on the basis that such a mechanism could be used to market shares in the early stages of a startup, long before they go public, something, thereby democratizing access to investment and preventing large investors, funds, venture…
