Real estate security tokens (RESTs) now make up almost half of all active security token markets, and represent 14.5% of these market's total volume. Despite taking up such a notable portion of the securities token sector, companies and inventors alike have done little to secure a foothold in RESTs via patents to date.
Whats more confounding is that the tokenization of physical assets is severely lagging behind the tokenization of other securities. While conventional wisdom states patent activity precedes market activity, the present case seems to be the reverse.
Will there be a scramble to claim patents in a sector that is advancing to become a significant space within the sector? Likely there will not be. The hotbed space within the securities tokenization sector is building out platforms where securities can be tokenized and traded. Although physical assets have not seen much overall activity in building out platforms so far, financial assets have seen an explosion of patent activity surrounding platforms. Overstock.com subsidiary tZERO already has its own patented trading platform, and has just received its second patent for the platform. Critically, these platforms can be used in the intangible asset space, or the physical asset space. This uptick in physical asset token trading is likely indicative of token trading platforms beginning to come online and gain more users. Overall this behavior likely means the first wave of major players in the securities tokenization sector are beginning to take shape, and will be looking to gain market share in the future. For instance, tZERO airdropped 4.37 million tokens on May 19th in a bid to generate more use of its trading platform.
See the rest of the field at Magic Number's Securities Tokenization forecast and do not forget to analyze tZERO's most recent patent at Patent Matrix®.
