The Legal Origins of Tokenization, between Sovereignty, Identity and Markets

This chapter examines tokenization through the lens of trust, reconstructing the legal and historical processes by which value and credibility have been formalised and transferred from fides to code. Tokenization is presented not as an isolated technological phenomenon but as the latest expression of a long-standing effort to stabilise social and economic relations through legally recognised forms. By tracing how trust evolved from interpersonal reliability in the Roman and medieval worlds to the institutional guarantees of modern sovereignty, the chapter situates today’s digital tokens within a broader transformation of the relationship between identity, authority, and markets. In distributed environments, where verification is automated, and consensus replaces command, tokenization performs the classical legal function of giving form to value and ensuring its circulation across networks. Yet it also reopens foundational questions about the sources of legitimacy and the allocation of trust in post-sovereign systems. Seen in this light, tokenization emerges as both a technological and juridical paradigm – one that redefines ownership, responsibility, and participation in the digital economy.