DLA Piper Launches New TOKO Security Tokenization Platform on Hedera Hashgraph, Hyperledger Fabric, and Microsoft Azure

HONG KONG, Nov. 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Global law firm DLA Piper, in collaboration with Aldersgate DLS (Digital Ledger Solutions) has launched TOKO, a new security token platform, built on Hedera Hashgraph, Hyperledger Fabric, and Microsoft Azure. The TOKO platform will allow investors to digitally purchase a fraction of the tokenized asset, with a fine art asset being the first project to be tokenized.

"DLA Piper has spent an immense amount of time studying the asset tokenization challenge, the legal issue surrounding tokenizations, and the platforms needed to deliver such offerings at scale," said Scott Thiel, Partner at DLA Piper. "TOKO is the result of years of research and development. We're thrilled to finally showcase this proof of concept and look forward to working with our clients and ecosystem partners who are keen to take advantage of  the opportunities created by the latest technologies, with a reputable and trusted business partner who can help them navigate the legal complexities of tokenization."

"Tokenizing assets on TOKO makes it easy to create new, highly-scalable markets that were never-before possible," said Mance Harmon, co-founder, and CEO of Hedera. "DLA Piper is pioneering a model that will generate liquidity, and reduce fraud through the strict, timestamped audit trails created through blockchain functionality. We are pleased to be an integral part of this initiative, and look forward to working with DLA Piper as it continues to develop."

DLA Piper and Aldersgate DLS successfully completed the very first tokenization project on the TOKO platform on 5 November 2020. The asset is a piece of fine artwork commissioned and purchased by a select group of DLA Piper Hong Kong partners. Created by Chinese artist Wang Xiao Bo, this bespoke project was structured as an unregulated security offering.

"This platform is the first of many steps in our vision to deliver a full ecosystem for digital asset tokenization," continued Thiel. "We expect to learn from investor feedback, continue to build on the best-of-breed technology stack we have chosen, and build out collaboration with consortium partners such as digital asset custodians and exchanges. With this announcement and ongoing buildout of this ecosystem, we aim to create a robust, trusted marketplace for digital assets that can be leveraged by organizations from startups to large enterprises."

DLA Piper's TOKO leverages Hedera Hashgraph's consensus algorithm, time stamping and finality features of the Hedera Consensus Service (HCS) to deliver the highest levels of trust for their tokenization service. DLA Piper has explored the high grade of security offered by the Hedera platform since joining the Hedera Governing Council in 2019. The Council aims to be the most decentralized governance model in the distributed ledger space, with up to 39 member organizations from diverse industries and geographies. Council members are committed to governing software changes, while bringing stability and continued decentralization to the Hedera network. 

The transaction ordering provided by HCS will be utilized by deploying a Hyperledger Fabric network with multiple organizations, peers, and orderers. The Fabric network will be deployed in the Microsoft Azure cloud environment, connecting to the Hedera public mainnet.

"Hyperledger Fabric is powering significant innovation in enterprise blockchain, and TOKO is a prime example of how Fabric can be leveraged to deliver the benefits of a private blockchain alongside the transparency of a public network like Hedera Hashgraph," said Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director, Hyperledger. "DLA Piper has taken an innovative and well-thought out approach with TOKO, and we congratulate them on this initial milestone."

"We're pleased to work with DLA Piper and their partners to help power global digital transformation," said Bob De Haven, General Manager, Worldwide Media & Communications at Microsoft Corp. "As the era of distributed trust evolves, Microsoft Azure  enables customers to scale innovative new business models that take advantage of these emerging technologies."

About Hedera

Hedera is a decentralized public network on which developers can build secure, fair applications with near real-time finality. The platform is owned and governed by a council of the world's leading organizations including Avery Dennison, Boeing, Deutsche Telekom, DLA Piper, FIS (WorldPay), Google, IBM, LG Electronics, Magalu, Nomura, Swirlds, Tata Communications, University College London (UCL), Wipro, and Zain Group.

For more information, visit www.hedera.com, or follow us on Twitter at @hashgraph, Telegram at t.me/hederahashgraph, or Discord at www.hedera.com/discord. The Hedera whitepaper can be found at www.hedera.com/whitepaper.

About DLA Piper

DLA Piper is a global law firm with lawyers located in more than 40 countries throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, positioning us to help clients with their legal needs around the world. In certain jurisdictions, this information may be considered attorney advertising. Dlapiper.com

About Aldersgate DLS

Aldersgate DLS is part of Aldersgate Group, an operationally independent but wholly owned DLA Piper subsidiary that designs, establishes and operates new businesses and solutions originating in the ideas generated from DLA Piper. These businesses and solutions are aligned to DLA Piper but are not traditional legal services. Aldersgate Group has its own systems and staff, who work with DLA Piper to develop ways of making business better and provide clients with solutions beyond pure legal advice.

About Hyperledger

Hyperledger is an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. It is a global collaboration including leaders in finance, banking, healthcare, supply chains, manufacturing and technology. Hyperledger hosts many enterprise blockchain technology projects including distributed ledger frameworks, smart contract engines, client libraries, graphical interfaces, utility libraries and sample applications. All Hyperledger code is built publicly and available under the Apache license. The Linux Foundation hosts Hyperledger under the foundation. To learn more, visit: https://www.hyperledger.org/.

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