The contemporary development of the digital economy and blockchain technologies stimulates the introduction of innovative financial instruments, among which tokenized assets occupy a particularly significant place. At the same time, the absence of a unified academic consensus regarding their definition gives rise to methodological and regulatory challenges that complicate the integration of such instruments into commercial legal relations.The purpose of this article is to analyze existing approaches to the interpretation of the term “tokenized asset”, to identify its structural elements, and to formulate a unified definition that incorporates both the technical and legal aspects of asset tokenization.

The doctrinal analysis carried out has revealed substantial divergences in the interpretation and understanding of the nature of tokenized assets among both domestic and foreign scholars.

The authors have identified the structural elements of a tokenized asset based on an analysis of its legal nature and through comparison with conceptually similar objects, in particular securities (e.g., shares and promissory notes), as well as documents of title (e.g., bills of lading).

A unified definition of the term “tokenized asset” is proposed: a tokenized asset constitutes a complex synthetic construct formed through the digitalization of an underlying (primary) asset and its representation via the issuance of a token recorded on a distributed ledger, followed by the establishment of a legal connection between the token and the asset, and its governance through programmable code (smart contract).

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