When people talk about tokens today, most think of the same thing: Bitcoin swinging wildly. Memes like Dogecoin. Thousands of coins nobody needs. The crypto world has built a reputation over the past ten years that oscillates between fascination and scepticism — and in many cases simply lands on scepticism. That is understandable. It is also unfair — because beneath the noise of speculation, something else has developed that has nothing to do with memes and everything to do with classical financial instruments: asset tokens.
This article explains what asset tokens are, why they differ fundamentally from speculative cryptocurrencies, and why Switzerland plays a role here that few people outside the industry are aware of.
The Swiss financial market authority, FINMA, introduced a systematic distinction back in 2018. It classifies tokens into three categories:
When people say “crypto”, they almost always mean the first category. When they say “the future of financial markets”, they mean the third.
Why Switzerland plays a special role here
Switzerland has done something few other countries have managed: it has created a law that clearly regulates tokenised securities — not by adapting existing regulation, but through its own framework.
The DLT Act came into force on 1 August 2021. DLT stands for Distributed Ledger Technology — the family of technologies to which blockchain belongs. The Act creates the legal concept of register value rights: securities that do not exist physically but are entered on a decentralised register, with the same legal effect as a classical security.
What this means in practice is hard to overstate. In most countries, asset tokens live in a grey zone — they are formally securities, but no one knows exactly which regulation applies, how ownership is transferred, how courts decide in case of dispute. In Switzerland, all of this is resolved. Asset tokens here have a legal standing comparable to a share.
In addition, the Financial Services Act FinSA (FIDLEG) has regulated conduct duties for financial service providers since 2020 — including the obligation to provide transparent information, prospectus requirements for public offers, and clear investor protection rules. Asset tokens fall under this regime, placing them on legal par with classical securities.
This combination of the DLT Act and FinSA is uniquely clear globally. There is no other major financial jurisdiction in which tokenised securities are so unambiguously regulated — and that is why Switzerland today has become one of the most important addresses for serious tokenisation projects.
Who implements asset tokens in Switzerland
This is not just an idea on paper. Several established players are working in Switzerland today in the tokenised securities space:
Sygnum Bank was the world’s first regulated digital asset bank. It tokenises classical securities for institutional clients and offers a fully integrated banking platform for digital assets.
Aktionariat enables Swiss SMEs to issue employee shares and participation rights as tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. Dozens of Swiss companies have used it to digitise their ownership structure.
SDX (SIX Digital Exchange) is the digital trading platform of the Swiss exchange SIX. Since 2021 it has operated a regulated infrastructure for tokenised securities with a full FINMA licence.
Taurus from Geneva offers custody solutions for digital assets and works with banks worldwide.
Beep Labs AG — we at beep — are building an asset token backed by a fleet of real robots. This is a different kind of tokenisation than at Sygnum or Aktionariat — we are not tokenising an existing security, but building a new asset class in which every token represents a share of a pool of working robots.
This list is not exhaustive. But it shows: Switzerland is not only well positioned regulatorily, it also has a growing ecosystem of companies seriously using the legal possibilities.
What makes an asset token — and what does not
A well-constructed asset token has five properties that distinguish it from speculative cryptocurrencies:
First — it is backed by real assets. Value comes not from market sentiment, but from what stands behind the token. For a tokenised share, that is an ownership interest in a company. For a tokenised bond, a payment obligation. For a robotics asset token, a robot fleet that works and earns.
Second — it is legally clearly classified. Ownership, transfer, dispute resolution follow clear rules. In Switzerland: the DLT Act and FinSA.
Third — it requires KYC verification of its holders. Unlike anonymous cryptocurrencies, holders of asset tokens must prove their identity. This is not a lack of privacy, but what makes them serious financial instruments.
Fourth — it is transparent. Issuance, transfer and ownership are traceable — technically via blockchain, legally via regular reports.
Fifth — it is not inflationary. Unlike many cryptocurrencies that can in theory be issued arbitrarily, asset tokens are tied to the number of underlying assets or bounded by clear issuance rules in the smart contract.
Anyone presented with a token that does not meet these five properties should be cautious. Anyone presented with one that does is dealing with a serious financial instrument.
What this means for investors
Asset tokens open doors for private investors that previously were only open to institutional investors. Direct participations in companies, real estate, robot fleets, infrastructure — all of this becomes accessible through tokenisation in smaller units for the first time. That is not trivial.
Until now, investing in a robot fleet required at least six-figure sums, building one’s own structures, paying advisors, negotiating contracts. This was not an obstacle from ill will, but from the real costs of classical structures. Asset tokens dramatically lower these costs — because transfer is digital, administration automated, compliance running through smart contracts.
This does not mean all risks disappear. The value of an asset token depends on the value of what stands behind it. If the underlying assets perform poorly, so does the token. But this is risk you can understand — unlike with speculative cryptocurrencies whose value follows the sentiment of Reddit forums.
The next ten years
Boston Consulting Group projects the global market for tokenised assets to reach approximately 16 trillion US dollars by 2030. That would be roughly ten percent of global GDP. Other estimates are lower or higher. What is clear: the tokenisation of real assets is no longer a question of if, but of when.
Switzerland positioned itself early with the DLT Act. Other jurisdictions are now catching up — the EU with MiCAR, Singapore with its own laws, the US with increasing clarity. But Switzerland has a head start that will pay off technically and legally in the coming years.
For investors this means: not every token is the same. Anyone warned about “crypto” should ask which kind of token is meant. Anyone meeting an asset token should check whether the five properties are met. And anyone meeting a Swiss asset token is probably dealing with one of the most serious market segments currently available.
This is not a guarantee of returns. It is a guarantee of clarity. And clarity is rare enough in the financial world to be valued.
