written by Erich Schnoeckel
A CALL TO ACTION FOR DUTCH POLITICS
We want to address the importance of sustainable finance and innovation in fintech, as outlined by the British Labour Party’s plan, and the relevance of these concepts to Dutch politics. This document calls for Dutch political engagement in developing a regulatory and supportive environment for tokenization and Web3 technologies, leveraging the Netherlands’ historic strengths in trade, finance, and logistics.
The goal of this document is to encourage Dutch political action to embrace these emerging technologies to maintain and enhance the Netherlands’ position in the global digital economy.
COMMENTING ON LABOUR’S PLAN FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES
The British labour party released their plan for the future of financial services in the UK on January 30, 2024. The attached chapters on sustainable finance and the one on innovation and fintech are particularly interesting and give an insight into what the future may bring. These two chapters are taken directly from the Labour party’s plan.
In short they stated that Britain should Lead the world in sustainable finance. They aim to do so by making the UK a global hub for green finance activity, delivering a world-leading green finance regulatory framework, and partnering with the financial services sector to support the decarbonisation of our homes.
They want to Embrace innovation and fintech as the future of financial services. By doing this they want the UK to become a global standard-setter for the use of AI in FS, delivering the next phase of Open Banking, defining a roadmap for Open Finance, embracing securities tokenisation and a central bank digital currency, and establishing a regulatory sandbox for financial products to reach underserved communities.
The British labour parties document calls for an urgent response of Dutch politics. 2Tokens, in cooperation with their partners is perfectly equipped to step up to that role. This document gives background, describes previous, current and future activities.
THE FUTURE OF TRADE AND FINANCE IN THE NETHERLANDS
Centuries of trade through Amsterdam and the countries other trading hubs laid the foundation for a service-oriented mindset and expertise in logistics and finance. These foundations can be traced back to the Golden Age, where trade fostered financial innovation and international connections, shaping a service-based economy that still exists and is continuously growing. The lack of natural resources pushed the Netherlands towards knowledge-based industries like finance, shipping, and logistics.
These are the industries where tokenization, as also acknowledged in the Labour parties document, will be the drivers for the future. The Netherlands can not afford not to research and invest in tokenization and must shape a fertile infrastructure for academia, startups, scaleups and corporations for tokenization initiatives.
The relationship between tokenization and Web3 is symbiotic and fundamental, with each enabling and enhancing the other. Web3, the next version of the internet, is the infrastructure, it is powered by blockchain technology and provides a decentralized and transparent platform for the creation, management and exchange of tokens. This decentralized nature aligns perfectly with the core values of Web3, promoting ownership, transparency, and trust.
Tokenization offers the building blocks that are needed to bring value to web3. It allows the conversion of any asset, tangible or intangible, into digital tokens on the blockchain.
These tokens can represent physical assets like real estate, intellectual property, or even voting rights in a decentralized organization. This creates new opportunities for ownership, fractionalization, and liquidity.
Tokenization fuels Web3 by providing the digital assets that are traded, exchanged, and used on its applications. Web3, in turn, provides the secure and transparent infrastructure for tokenized assets to function and thrive. Together, they create a powerful ecosystem where ownership, value creation, and participation are democratized.
Next to the services oriented industries, the Dutch economy also has other important players that contribute on a large scale to the prosperity of the Netherlands. The two larger are the chemical sector and agriculture. Both these industries have legal obligations to comply with reporting standards on ESG, mainly sustainability. Tokenization can contribute to the trustworthiness of the data of these reports, tracing goods and components from its origin through the whole value chain.
THE DUTCH RESPONSE
2Tokens.org is a Dutch non for profit foundation that formulates a guide, as part of a larger vision, for any type of organization which wants to leverage tokens. It is the aim to come to a shared understanding on the token economy and, as such, it is a public interest initiative supported by a diverse community of technology companies, policy makers, financial advisors, banks, legal & regulatory experts and academia.
Another aspect of this vision is the educational aspect that is embedded in the 2Tokens foundation. Through the development of token use-case, the creation of webinars & podcasts, and the documentation of our activities, we increase the token knowledge base of both our participants and interested people and organizations.
Based on the information shared in the Labour document we see challenges ahead for the Netherlands as well. Where the Netherlands is part of the EU and bound to implement the upcoming MICA regulations, the use cases for tokenization are given clear guidelines. Within these guidelines there are still many possibilities that 2Tokens researches and publishes on, often in cooperation with other European parties like INATBA or ITSA.
2Tokens stands central in the Dutch decentralized economy. Since its inception it has facilitated working groups around a multitude of topics in the digital economy. In diversified multinational partnerships it researched on, published, talked, and disseminated about Programmable Energy tokens, the Digital Notary, Invoice Market, ESG Carbon tokenization, Electronic Bill of Lading, Next Gen Capital and a Loyalty token.
CURRENT ENGAGEMENTS
2Tokens’ vision is to educate as many as possible on tokenization and it does so by researching practical use cases in cooperation with market parties and with legal support to comply with current regulations. With many focus areas already researched and published on there are still many to do.
Next Generation Capital will be continued toward Tokenized Bonds and Physical Real World Asset tokenization. ESG Carbon has become part of an INATBA lead European research project and Tokenized Energy will be implemented on the island of Ameland.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
For more details on the Dutch web3 eco system and the current 2Tokens project, please contact: erich@2tokens.org