Tokenization and Blockchain Tokens Classification: a morphological framework

Abstract

The work here presented moves from the acknowledgment that, even if blockchain technology has been around for more than ten years, the knowledge about its economic and business implications is fragmented and heterogeneous. In the first place, it is analyzed the shift from economics to tokenomics and the central role of the token within blockchain-based ecosystems. Subsequently, a generalized definition of the token is proposed. Diving into the requirements for a comprehensive description of tokens, that takes into account their wide variety, a comparative assessment of token classification frameworks available in the literature is performed. This analysis is leveraged to propose a new and comprehensive token classification framework, based on a morphological analysis representation. The proposed framework will be further refined with an empirical and iterative approach in future works.