Cardano Foundation 執行長 Frederik Gregaard：從代幣到真正擁有權，鏈上資產的法律與透明革命

0:00開場介紹與主題設定

0:00大家好，我是 David Wachsman，來自 Wachsman 和 Hawkeye Digital，一家上市的商業銀行。今天很高興邀請到 Cardano Foundation 的 Frederik 一起來討論。Frederik，請你先簡單自我介紹一下，然後我們就直接進入主題吧。Hello, everybody. I'm David Wachsman, as mentioned of Wachsman and Hawkeye Digital, a publicly traded merchant bank. And I'm joined today by a Nassim colleague, Frederick of the Cardano Foundation. Frederick, why don't you quickly introduce yourself, and then we're going to jump straight into it.

0:23大家好，我是 Frederik Gregaard，目前擔任 Cardano Foundation 執行長。我們是全球最大的數位國家 Cardano 的貢獻者，擁有 900 萬公民，實現完整鏈上治理。我們致力於用區塊鏈改變社會體制與金融基礎設施，讓世界變得更好。Yeah, my name is Frederik Gregaard. I'm the CEO of the Cardano Foundation, and we are a contributor to the world's largest digital nation state called Cardano, with 9 million citizens, full on-chain governance, and we're really putting blockchain out to change social systems and financial infrastructure for the better.

0:40Tokenization 的現況與問題

0:40Frederik，你在進入區塊鏈之前就有金融服務和高度監管產業的背景。今天我們要談的主題是「資產代幣化」。這個詞在傳播產業裡很紅，但它真的只是個流行語嗎？很多公司都在談資產代幣化，但實際上幾乎沒什麼真正落地的成果。據我了解，目前大多數資產代幣化專案都有根本性的缺陷，這是真的嗎？Well, you have a background even before you came in the blockchain space and working in financial services and heavily regulated spaces. And what I want to talk about today is tokenization, which, from the communications industry, I can tell you, is a buzzword that's gotten a lot of attention. But it's just a buzzword, Frederick. I mean, we all know that lots of companies talk about tokenization, and essentially nothing gets done. But my understanding is that there are some fundamental flaws with essentially almost all tokenization projects thus far. Is that true?

1:11沒錯，這完全正確。現在大家都在談資產代幣化，因為技術上很容易做到。其實早在 1980 年代，我們就已經把股票數位化了，從紙本交易變成電子化，這讓交易更快、更便宜、更有效率。但現在的資產代幣化，反而是在已經數位化的東西上加上更多限制，反而減少了功能。Yeah, that's absolutely correct. And you're absolutely also correct that it's a buzzword. So what basically is happening right now is everybody is talking about tokenization because tokenization is really easy to do. So back in the 80s, we actually tokenized stocks. So, you know, we actually took the paper trades, right? And, you know, you came to the bank and we made it digital, right? But the digital version of the stock had some enhanced qualities about it. It allowed you to do things better, faster, cheaper. And what we're doing now today is we are basically digitizing something which is already digital, but we're now putting handcuffs on it. So we're actually reducing features. We are making more restrictions by tokenizing.

1:51現有代幣化的權利問題

1:51那你說的限制是什麼意思？假設現在有一個證券被代幣化，投資人到底擁有什麼權利？其實全球很多大公司都做過這件事，但通常你得到的權利比直接買股票還少。舉例來說，現在很多代幣化平台，你買到的其實不是股票本身，而是某個在巴哈馬或開曼群島的資產負債表上的參與權，這不代表你有法律上的股票所有權。你也很難用更便宜的價格買到，因為像 Robinhood 這種平台股票交易已經免費了。最重要的是，你沒有法律追索權，也不能參加股東大會或公司治理，甚至連投票權都沒有。你買到的只是區塊鏈上的一個代表物，並不是真正的股票。Okay, so what do you mean by that? So let's say right now there's some sort of security and someone tokenized it. What rights does someone have? If you are an owner, an investor in that security. So obviously this has been done around the world multiple times, right, from really big companies. So it's really hard to answer that question, like, what rights do you have? But in general, you have worse rights, so you're worse off than if you buy the actual stock. What do you mean by that? Give me an example of something that I might not have. With tokenization platforms today, the standards. So let's say you buy an Nvidia stock or an Apple stock on a tokenization platform. You actually don't own it, right? So first and foremost, you might have a participation in a balance sheet, maybe on the Bahamas, on the Cayman Islands, where this balance sheet also owns some of those stocks. But it doesn't mean that you have the legal claim. For the actual stock, which you think you own, which could be okay if you then can get a discount on the stock, you can buy it at a cheaper price, but probably not. Probably not, right? Because you can go on Robinhood and you can trade stocks for free, right? Right. So it's really hard to get it cheaper, right? So you actually have no legal recourse who gives you the claim. And if you wanted to go to a general assembly or participate in any kind of corporate governance, you don't get that. Most of the time, so I may not have voting rights, even though I'm an owner of a stock because I bought a tokenized version of it. So I'm quite literally getting a hobbled version of that equity. Yeah. And you said owner. You're technically not the owner of it. You're the owner of something represented on the blockchain. Who might or might not follow the value of the stock. And then the tokenization company would be saying, Yeah, but we guarantee you that it will follow the value of the stock.

3:40Cardano 的新解法：法律認可的鏈上股份

3:40假設你說的都對，現有的代幣化標準確實不夠好，那你們有什麼不同的提案？我們提出了一個三大支柱的新方案。其實 Cardano Foundation 最近就做了這樣的提案。現在你可以在 Cardano 區塊鏈上看到 85 萬股瑞士公司 Veridian 的股份，這家公司剛從 Cardano Foundation 獨立出來。這些股份的代幣化已經上鏈，每一個代幣就代表一股，並且根據瑞士的中央證券存管法規，這個鏈上代幣就是法律認可的股份，不再只是代表權益，而是真正的股份。Okay, fine. So let's assume that you're right, and let's assume that these tokenization standards aren't up to snuff, and that's what we see universally today. What do you propose that's different? So we propose a different solution, right? And it has three legs to stand on. So CF actually made this proposal recently. Is that not the case? Right now, as we speak, you can go on the Cardano blockchain and you can see 850,000 shares, which is the tokenization of a Swiss company called Veridian. This is Identity Company, which is just right now spun out of the Cardano Foundation. Right now. Right now as we speak, this is being released, but it's on the blockchain already, so you can find it on the Cardano blockchain. And what you can see is that one token represents one share, but not just that, is under the Swiss Centralized Securities Depositor Act equivalent from the legal claim. That means that you know, it is no longer a representation of the share. It is the share. The on-chain token is the share, and it's right now happening on the Cardano blockchain, and this is of this Swiss company.

4:47要做到這一點，你需要可程式化的代幣。雖然其他區塊鏈也有類似的功能，但每個金融中心（像新加坡、盧森堡、美國、瑞士）規定都不一樣，很難讓監管機關認可。現在我們可以把全球通用的法律實體識別碼（LEI）和可驗證法人識別碼（vLEI）嵌入代幣裡，讓它在各地都被接受。Cardano 的可程式化代幣設計，讓我們能在鏈上管理並通過監管審查。今天我們已經在瑞士實現，接下來會推廣到新加坡或紐約，未來有機會成為全球多地適用的標準。And to do that, right, you needed to get to a situation that you have programmable tokens. And there is other blockchains who have versions of programmable tokens, but you always get into this problematic that—The different financial centers, Singapore, Luxembourg, the U.S., Switzerland, is slightly different. And it was really hard to actually represent it that the financial service authorities tick that box. And we are now in a situation where we can take the off-chain legal identity, which is accepted in all jurisdictions around the world. It's called the LEI, and the—Quantum Secure Version is the VLIR. We can embed that into the tokenization so it's accepted around there. We have enough tooling around this programmability of the token because Cardano works slightly different that we can actually manage that on-chain and get that through all these regulatory authorities. And what we announced today, not just announced, what has happened today, right now, is we've done Switzerland. And now the next question is, will Singapore or New York be next? And so there could be an actual global standard, a framework for tokenized assets that works in multiple jurisdictions.

6:29新標準的實際應用與好處

6:29這個新標準已經在瑞士上線，第一家企業已經實際運作。我們也在和其他司法管轄區合作，讓他們能夠上線。任何人都可以來申請，比如說在巴哈馬也能用這個標準。這不只是把資產上鏈，更能證明這樣做真的更好、更快、更便宜。以 Veridian 為例，這家公司今天剛釋出，這種代幣化能實現過去做不到的事。And so this framework, it's available already released for review? No, this is already done for Switzerland, and the super standard is already done and audited, is on-chain, right? And the first company is live. And now we are working with two other jurisdictions to get them live, right? But anybody can now come and say, Hey, I'm in the Bahamas. I want exactly that, right? And what is really good about it is not only can we represent it on-chain, right? We can prove how we can make this better, faster, cheaper. That means we can actually say why this is a better product. So let's use the case of Veridian, for example, the company is being released today. What does this enable? What does this tokenization enable that simply wasn't possible before?

6:49Veridian 是個特別的案例，因為我們現在正在為它募資，也有國家級的客戶表示有興趣，因為這個數位身分平台可以保護兒童的身分。這個平台提供企業需要的身分層，是一個尊重身分隱私的加密原生錢包基礎設施。我們不是把所有資料集中在一個資料庫，因為現在的資料庫只有兩種：已經被駭過的和即將被駭的。我們打造的錢包基礎設施可以管理多種身分標準，包括 LEI，這是傳統金融都在用的。我們讓它可以在 Cardano 上用，甚至也能在 Sui、Ethereum、IBM 等平台上用，這是為了讓區塊鏈成為金融市場基礎設施的增強錨點，而不是像現有代幣化那樣成為限制。So Veridian is a bit of a special entity, right? Because it's something we are fundraising for right now, right? So we're looking for strategic investors to make this much... larger and much broader. And we already have basically a nation state who is saying, you know, we want that because it can actually protect the identity of our kids. This digital identity platform, which is required, you need to have an identity layer for, for example, corporates. It's a crypto-native wallet infrastructure who respects identity in the way we want that to happen, right? So it's not about putting everything in a centralized record, because there's only two types of databases today. There's the one who has been hacked and the one who will be hacked, right? And we saw that earlier today in the discussion about quantum security, right? And what we basically build is a wallet infrastructure who can manage different types of identity, including these identity standards, which is built on something called Cary and ACDC. Which is this LEI, which specifically for TradFi works, because this is what everybody is using today off-chain. We just made the anchor that you can use it on Cardano. But you know what? You can actually also use it on Sui. You can actually also use it on Ethereum. You can use it on IBM, right? Because this has to go wider. This is about how do we actually put blockchain in as an enhancement anchor for financial market infrastructure. And not as a restriction, as we see it today with tokenization.

8:14公共財與普及化推動

8:14我們把 Veridian 獨立出來，就是希望它能成為真正的全球性公司，有更大的成長空間。我們本來也可以把 Cardano 的金庫全部投入這個專案，但這樣做意義不大。這應該是一個公共財，讓投資人、企業、家族企業和金融市場基礎設施都能升級，享受這些好處。So because you're spinning out Veridian, it allows it to be a truly universal company and have a lot more growth. That's why we're doing it, right? Because we could have taken all the treasury of Cardano and put it into that, but that doesn't serve enough purpose. This should be a public good, allowing investors, allowing companies, allowing... Family businesses and financial market infrastructure to upscale to a world where they can actually get the benefits of this.

8:41新標準下的股份與傳統股份的差異

8:41回到這個新框架下的代幣化證券（以瑞士為例），這個代幣就是股份，一比一對應，不再只是代表權益。那它比傳統紙本或舊式數位股份有什麼優勢？傳統股權價值鏈上有很多角色：過戶代理、託管人、公司行動等，每個環節都有自己的資料庫，必須彼此同步，還有身分層。大多數人只知道 KYC 和 AML，但其實還有很多中繼資料和其他資訊很重要。現在這些都可以在同一個平台上共享，規則固定不變，甚至能在 Cardano 上做選擇性揭露，實現隱私保護。這樣一來，所有資料庫的同步和維護都變得更容易，光是資料搬移和對帳就能省下很多人力。Well, I want to go back to talking about kind of this tokenized, let's call it a tokenized security, for example, using this new framework that right now works today in Switzerland. So the token is the share that we know, right? It's exactly one to one. It's not a representative of here. It is the share. Yeah. But what makes it better than, let's call it, a paper share or one of those old-school digital shares that we might see at a transfer agent today, or the equivalent? So when we walk down the value chain of a share, right, you have different things like transfer agents, custodians, you have corporate actions and stuff. And what you actually have is you have a set of databases, right? Who all need to be in sync with each other. And then on top of that, you have an identity layer. Most people in crypto is only familiar with the end of the identity layer with the KYC and AML. But actually, as you walk down the chain, you have a lot more about metadata and other things who actually play a really big role. And by having this shared on a common platform. Which is locked in, so the rules of the game cannot change. And we have the ability, even on Cardano, to do selective disclosure, right? So we can actually do quite a lot of privacy around it. You have a common database. That means that the maintenance of all the other databases becomes way easier to sync. So just by the manual labor of moving data from A to B and then reconciling, is that the same as C or not? Already there, you have a saving.

10:08鏈上透明度與審計創新

10:08這樣的設計對金融服務來說，審計會更清楚、更精確，股權流轉的來源和轉移都能不可竄改且公開透明，監管單位也能完全掌握股東名單。我們甚至把 Cardano Foundation 及其控股公司的所有財務交易（包括租金和薪資）都放到 Cardano 區塊鏈上，總共超過七萬筆交易。然後請審計師驗證這些交易是否和我們內部帳務一致，他們用 hash 演算法比對，完全接受區塊鏈作為真實來源，不再需要現場抽查。審計師還問能不能直接在鏈上簽名，我們就幫他們申請了數位版的 LEI（vLEI），所以現在 Grant Thornton Zurich 可以直接在鏈上簽署全數審查報告，並公開上網。So that should, I mean, I would think, putting my financial services hat on, that would allow for audits to be clearer, more accurate. It would allow for the provenance and transfer of shares to be something that's immutable and visible, and it would allow for regulators, perhaps in this permissive manner, to have total visibility to who shareholders are, for example. Exactly. And it's funny you're saying it, right? Because we actually took the Cardano Foundation and its holding companies, and we put all the financial transactions, including our rent and salaries, on the Cardano blockchain. So we're talking about seventy-something thousand transactions. That's a lot of transparency right there. And then we asked—Our auditors have to say, can you verify that these 70,000 transactions is the same as we have in our internal accounting system? Then we use the blockchain by using a hash algorithm, which I think everybody is familiar with here, right? And they actually said, yeah, we understand hash algorithms. So we said, we can sign that off. Then they said, oh, hold on a second. So now we have digital access to all of your transactions. We don't need to go on site. And actually, you know, ask for spot check. We can take that when we want. And we said, yeah, you can take that when you want. Shouldn't we then just do a full architecture check, like a full population check of all of your transactions? We're like, yeah, how much does that cost? Wait, wait, wait, time out. You're telling me your auditors went and checked 70, all 70,000 transactions. They were able to test all of them automatically? Yeah, and they accepted that the source of truth was the blockchain. Not the accounting system. That's wild. And then further to that, they said, but how do we then sign that off? Because normally they sign a PDF document, and most of us has been investing in companies, right? And then you get a PDF document with a balance sheet, and you have some signature in the bottom, and you think, how do I even know these numbers are correct? Or even worse, if you look at Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, like, you know, they are reporting, right? It's impossible to figure out what the risk is. It's so complicated, right? Impossible. So they said, can't we just sign that on the blockchain? I said, sure you can. What kind of identity do you have? And we're like, we don't really have one. You know, we are Grant Thornton, very big audit firm. He said, why don't you get one of these LEIs which all the banks and all the big trading companies have? I said, yeah, sure, we'll get one of those. But we need the digital version, so they got a VLEI. So what happened is that after our board meeting, where they presented that there was no fraud and everything was well done on the full architecture, they take the hardware security module, they walk out, put it into a computer, sign it off, so you can see on-chain the off-chain verification using the Veridian standard, right? We Grand Thornton Zurich has done a full architecture check of all of your transactions, and we find that it's in order, and then they uploaded that to the internet, right?

13:02審計效率提升與投資人保障

13:02這樣一來，審計變得更全面、更快速、更便宜。理論上你可以更頻繁地審計。當我跟會計主管說要半年審一次，他一開始還很抗拒，但數位化讓人力省下 50-60%，同樣資源就能一年做兩次。這對企業和上市公司來說是革命性的，因為傳統審計又貴又慢又容易出錯。更重要的是，這讓任何投資人都能即時驗證自己的投資是否有風險，無論是社交工程、AI 機器人攻擊還是詐騙，都能查證公司真的有錢、業務活動是否屬實。你可以用 agentic AI 和其他工具驗證事實，而不是靠猜測，減少投機成分。So, as a consequence of this, it sounds to me like you're able to make much more comprehensive and sophisticated audits faster and perhaps less expensive. Yes. You could conceivably then. Do more audits if you wanted to. Yes. So the idea now is that why don't we do this maybe six months? And when I told my head of accounting that, he was like, No way. This has—we're not doing that, right? So by the way, for business owners and for public companies, what he's talking about right now is totally game-changing. Audits are incredibly extensive. They're time-consuming, expensive, full of holes. This is what he's talking about is like magic. Yeah, so basically, my head of accounting said, you know, we're not doing this. This is just too much. And I said, how much resources did you save in terms of manpower of this digitalization going from spot checks to full population? Said, well, maybe 50, 60% less time. I was like, well, then you can do it twice a year, right? Same resources. It's like, yeah, we can probably do that. And the reason why we're doing that, right, is because if we can get to a situation that any investors out there can verify whether their investments is at risk due to a social engineering attack, due to an AI bot attack, due to a bot farm, that they can go in and actually verify, do these people have the money? Yes and no. Do these people's business activities, are they actually what they say they are? You know, am I investing in a real estate company, or am I investing in a bank, or am I investing in a new type of city, right? You want to understand that as the business does these things. And this allows you to use agentic AI and other tools to verify the truth, not the perception of We are guessing what the truth is. So less speculation.

14:53結語：更好的標準、更透明的未來

14:53總結來說，Cardano 現在的代幣化標準對發行方和投資人都更有利，尤其是投資人。這種審計方式我們已經用了兩年，雖然很多人覺得太透明會有點害怕，但其實正確的做法是從完全透明開始，再根據需求加上隱私限制。就像你不能從私有鏈直接轉成公有鏈，但可以從公有鏈加一層 Layer-2 實現商業邏輯。Frederik，感謝你今天的分享，也恭喜你們今天的大發表，謝謝大家收看！What I'm hearing here today is that on Cardano now, tokenization standards are better for issuers and much, much, much better for investors. Yes. Now, right now. And we have this audit possibility since the last two years, right? And most people are a little bit scared of this because it's a little bit too much transparency. But what's—You can never go from no transparency to some transparency. A way you can go from is full transparency and then do restrictions on the privacy, right? And this is actually the right way of working down. It's the same. You cannot go from a, you know, from a private permission blockchain to a full public blockchain, but you can go from a public blockchain and then have a layer two with the business logic. Those things work really well. Well, Frederick, thanks for being here. Congratulations on today's big launch, and thanks everyone for watching us talk.