Il diritto di fronte alla tokenizzazione dell’economia

The article identifies and analyses the main issues raised by the so-called tokenisation of assets of economic value, i.e. the tendency to convert wealth into digital tokens and then issue them on blockchain-based platforms through smart contracts. The work helps to address the multiple legal issues that tokenisation raises in order to foster a more general reflection on whether or not the current technological revolution also requires a legal revolution. The study is structured along two lines: property law and securities law, and helps to clarify the uncertain legal framework in which these new practices take place. Finally, tokenisation is taken as a privileged field of investigation into the relationship between law and new technologies: is current law equipped for the current technological revolution? Should it be reconsidered? Will it be replaced by computer code? The conclusion is that the current technological revolution need not necessarily entail a legal revolution.