About the Author: I'm Tim Dierckxsens, CEO of Venly, a blockchain technology provider. Before founding Venly, I spent years as a business consultant, helping executives innovate with digital solutions in industries like music, postal services, supply chain, and banking.

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We live in a world where it's impossible to ignore the intersection of physical assets and their digital records. Every item we produce gets recorded, tagged, scanned, or shipped somewhere. You might think, "We've been cataloging assets in databases for 20 years, so why fix what isn't broken?"

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With that mindset, we remain stuck, believing we don't need better systems or processes. We wouldn't have moved from analog to digital or from on-premise to cloud solutions if we thought that way. Looking back at those innovations, it's hard to imagine how we ever lived without them.

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I believe it will be the same with blockchain technology. One day we'll look back and think, "I can't believe we ever built our solutions without it." While using blockchain seems daunting, it isn't when you can easily integrate it within your own business without the steep learning curve.

At Venly, we're a leading blockchain technology provider delivering world-class APIs and integrated solutions to help you build your business with blockchain technology.

Tokenizing Real World Assets

Tokenizing real-world assets is just a fancy way of saying we'll record physical assets on the blockchain and use those digital records in relation to the physical item.

Why tokenize on blockchain in the first place?

There isn't a singular reason, and that's exactly why blockchain hasn't become mainstream... yet. Everyone is waiting for that killer app or "ChatGPT moment" to showcase just how powerful the technology really is. While there's a long list of use cases, let's focus on Doug's story for today.

Doug's Story: Highland Titles

Doug Wilson is the CEO of Highland Titles, a company that's been in business for 17 years. They sell plots of land in Scotland as a souvenir or gift. Consumers purchase a digital certificate that is the deed to a 1, 5, 10, or 100 square foot plot of land—the "Real World Asset."

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With the purchase, consumers:

• Can call themselves Laird, Lord, or Lady of the Glen.
• Download a digital certificate and get access codes to the app.
• Receive a personalized gift pack related to their plot of land.
• Contribute to a goodwill foundation, "Dedicate A Tree."
• Get other physical products like coasters, tickets, personalized gift boxes, etc.

For Doug, upgrading his business with blockchain was a clear, strategic choice. Now, the plots of land are recorded on a more permanent and secure system than a regular database. His consumers can verify the uniqueness and authenticity of their assets on the public ledger.

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Another benefit for Doug is improved access management for his app. Previously, he sent access credentials in a downloadable PDF, which buyers could easily share beyond Doug's control. Now, the asset itself is the access pass. Blockchain also solved issues like inheritance, resale, or reclaiming plots under new ownership, as every transaction is securely tracked.

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Last but not least, Doug loved the ability to add information to the original record. This enables him to enhance an original title or certificate of ownership with relevant, up-to-date information. The point is that blockchain gave Doug several advantages over his own database, and once he discovered how powerful it can be, he didn't want to go back.

How Did Doug Do It?

For Doug, it was easy. He was already using Shopify to sell his digital assets. All he had to do was download our Shopify app to have a no-code solution to record them as a collection on the blockchain. With every purchase, the asset now gets tokenized (recorded) on the blockchain (improved database), which validates the purchase and distributes the asset to the buyer.

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While the Shopify app simplified the creation of blockchain-based assets, Doug has now moved further to leverage our automation tools to reduce manual work and record these assets into his shop at scale. He's continuing his journey down the rabbit hole, learning about dynamic NFTs, automatic royalty distribution, soulbound assets, meta transactions, and more.

How Doug's Story Can Apply to You

Doug understood that blockchain has merits for his particular use case. When people ask me, "Why blockchain?" I try to go back to its core values: trust, transparency, authenticity, ownership, and security. Do these values apply to you and your business? If so, then blockchain has a role to play within your organization or use case—especially if you need a track and trace log of every record created.

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I hope you found this article on RWAs and blockchain insightful.

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Ready to integrate? Set up a meeting with one of our experts or start building right away via our Developer Portal.

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Stay tuned for more content!