# Tokenization

- Link: https://perfectnations.com/tokenization/
- Published: 2026-07-12T02:19:22-05:00
- Author: Preeti Sinha

Perfect Nations™ · Civilization Design

# Tokenization, _honestly_

Sovereign tokenisation is real, it has been done, and it does far less than it is
sold as doing. This page is what has actually settled — dated and sourced — what
the format does not fix, and only then the thing Perfect Nations is proposing.

Cases recorded07

Each onesourced

Our own proposala concept

 [What has actually been done](https://perfectnations.com/tokenization/#pntk-cases)
[What it does not fix](https://perfectnations.com/tokenization/#pntk-limits)

The record

## What has actually _settled_

Seven entries, in order. Six went to market or to a working prototype; one did not,
and is here for that reason.

2018

### World Bank “bond-i”

World Bank · Commonwealth Bank of Australia · **A$110m**

The first bond created, allocated, transferred and managed through its life using
distributed ledger technology. A landmark because it proved the full lifecycle could
run on a ledger, not because it changed the economics of the debt.

 [World Bank →](https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/08/23/world-bank-prices-first-global-blockchain-bond-raising-a110-million)

2021

### EIB digital bond

European Investment Bank · Goldman Sachs, Santander, Société Générale · **€100m**

A two-year note issued and settled on a public blockchain, with the syndicate registering
the securities on-chain. The first digital bond from a supranational issuer of this
size.

 [EIB →](https://www.eib.org/en/press/all/2021-141-eib-issues-its-first-ever-digital-bond-on-a-public-blockchain)

Feb 2023

### Hong Kong’s inaugural tokenised green bond

HKSAR Government · HKMA · **HK$800m**

The first tokenised green bond issued by a government. Proof that a sovereign could
take the format to market under its own name rather than through a pilot.

 [HKMA →](https://www.hkma.gov.hk/eng/news-and-media/press-releases/2023/02/20230216-3/)

Nov 2023

### Philippines tokenised Treasury bonds

Bureau of the Treasury, Republic of the Philippines · **₱15bn**

One-year bonds at 6.50%, sold to institutional investors on a dual registry — the
Treasury’s own DLT registry alongside the conventional one. Targeted at ₱10bn and
awarded at ₱15bn on demand. The first tokenised sovereign issuance in South-East
Asia.

 [Global Government Finance →](https://www.globalgovernmentfinance.com/philippines-offers-first-tokenised-treasury-bonds-in-digital-technology-drive/)

Feb 2024

### Hong Kong’s multi-currency digital green bond

HKSAR Government · CMU · HSBC Orion · **HK$6bn equivalent**

Four currencies in one digitally native issue — HK$2bn, RMB1.5bn, US$200m and €80m—
sold without first issuing conventionally and converting. The clearest demonstration
to date that the format works at sovereign scale.

 [HKSAR Government →](https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202402/07/P2024020700516.htm)

Apr 2025

### Project Promissa

BIS Innovation Hub · World Bank · Swiss National Bank · **Proof of concept**

Tokenising the promissory notes that member countries use to pledge multi-year contributions
to multilateral development banks — today still paper. Seven countries took part
and the IMF observed. The report found a platform technically feasible, and said
plainly that more work would be needed to make it operational.

 [BIS →](https://www.bis.org/press/p250423.htm)

2021–

### El Salvador’s “Volcano” bond

Government of El Salvador · **US$1bn announced**

Announced in 2021 as a bitcoin-backed sovereign bond, postponed in 2022 citing market
conditions, and given domestic regulatory approval in December 2023. On the latest
public reporting it has not been issued at the announced scale. It is on this page
deliberately: the gap between an announcement and a settled trade is where most 
of this subject lives.

 [CoinDesk →](https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/12/12/worlds-first-bitcoin-bonds-receive-regulatory-approval-in-el-salvador)

The limits

## What tokenisation _does not fix_

Anyone selling this to a finance ministry should be made to say these five things
first. They are the reason the format has spread among issuers who were never short
of buyers, and barely at all among those who are.

 1. **It does not change who will lend to you.**Tokenisation changes the record and
    the settlement, not the credit. A country that cannot place a conventional bond
    does not become placeable by issuing the same risk on a ledger. Every issuance 
    above was done by an issuer who could already borrow.
 2. **It does not create a buyer.**Most tokenised sovereign issues so far have been
    bought by the same institutions that buy the conventional paper, often into the
    same portfolios. Secondary trading has generally been thin. The promised retail
    market is still largely promised.
 3. **The legal claim is the hard part, not the technology.**What a holder actually
    owns, in which jurisdiction, and what happens in a default or a restructuring, 
    is settled by law and by the documentation — not by the ledger. Hong Kong and the
    Philippines both ran a conventional registry alongside the digital one for exactly
    this reason.
 4. **The saving is real but modest.**Faster settlement, fewer intermediaries, less
    reconciliation. Worth having. Not the difference between financing a water system
    and not financing it.
 5. **Verification is the unsolved problem for anything outcome-linked.**A token representing
    delivery of a standard is only as good as the measurement behind it. Who counts
    the households connected, how often, and who is liable if the count is wrong — 
    none of that is a blockchain question, and all of it has to be answered first.

Concept stage — not a live financial product

## The _Standard Token_

Everything above prices a nation’s _promise to repay_. The proposal here is to price
something else: a nation’s _verified delivery of a standard_ — a household connected
to clean water, a child in a class of forty, a home that meets the floor.

A Standard Token would represent one verified unit of that delivery, against one
of [the eight standards](https://perfectnations.com/the-standards/), measured the
way that page defines it. The instrument it settles against would pay on the measurement,
not on the activity — which is the same logic as an outcome bond, with the outcome
defined by a published floor rather than negotiated deal by deal.

**It does not exist.** There is no token, no issuance, no pilot and no counterparty.
The verification problem in the fifth limit above is unsolved and would have to 
be solved first. It is published here as a design under development, so that it 
can be argued with.

Concept stage. Standard Tokens are a design concept, not a live financial product.
Nothing on this page is an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security or 
financial instrument, and nothing here is investment or legal advice.

## Tell us where this is _wrong_.

A concept published early is meant to be argued with. Corrections to the record 
above are just as welcome.

 [Start a Conversation](https://perfectnations.com/contact/?about=tokenization) 
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