Value Capturing from Tokenized Asset Histories

Abstract

Digital tokens have sparked the interest of many businesses as they enable them to attribute value to digital objects and create novel ways for handling these. In the context of the used car trade, creating a unique representation of a car’s history (i.e., a tokenized car history) can help reduce information asymmetry and offer potential for businesses aiming to monetize their so far unutilized data resources. Having reached sufficient maturity, businesses developing tokenized asset histories are more and more questioning how they will best capture these newly created values. Applying design science research methods, we (1) propose two designs for offering and pricing tokenized asset histories and (2) evaluate their business implications for its providers through an experimental market game with 102 participants. The results indicate that users can be granted control over the offering and pricing tokenized asset histories without sacrificing its value but significantly increasing its trade and revenue.