The objective of the course is to provide students with a structured understanding of how tokenization and distributed ledger technologies (DLT) may reshape the monetary and financial system. The course focuses on the interaction between technological innovation, financial market structures and financial institutions and monetary policy, and examines the implications of tokenized money, financial assets and infrastructures for financial stability and regulation. The course contributes to the development of the following general and subject-specific competences.

General competences
- Ability to analyze and critically evaluate complex developments in financial systems and financial technologies.
- Ability to understand the broader economic, institutional and technological environment shaping financial markets and infrastructures.
- Ability to independently search for, interpret and use relevant academic and professional sources.
- Ability to discuss complex financial and policy issues and present structured arguments in written and oral form.
- Ability to participate in analytical discussions and collaborative problem solving.

Subject-specific competences
- Understanding of the structure of the modern monetary and financial system, including the roles of central bank money, commercial bank money and financial market infrastructures.
- Ability to analyze the technological foundations of tokenization and distributed ledger systems in financial markets.
- Ability to assess different forms of tokenized money and financial assets, including stablecoins, tokenized deposits and central bank digital currencies.
- Ability to analyze the implications of tokenization for financial intermediation, monetary policy transmission and financial stability.
- Ability to critically interpret regulatory and policy responses to tokenization and digital financial innovation.

The course is structured in five thematic blocks:

1. Current Monetary and Financial Architecture
- Public vs. private money: central bank vs. commercial bank money; the two-tier banking system & its historical evolution
- Functions and properties of money: medium of exchange, unit of account and store of value; singleness, elasticity and integrity
- Functioning of financial institutions and their main function: mitigation of information asymmetries and liquidity provision
- Financial assets and financial markets: debt, equity and derivative claims; role of financial intermediaries and capital markets
- Clearing, payment and settlement systems

2. Technological Foundations of Tokenization
- Distributed ledger technologies and programmable financial infrastructures: conceptual foundations and economic properties
- Permissioned vs. permissionless blockchains: governance structures, trust assumptions and economic trade-offs
- Smart contracts, programmability and composability: implications for intermediation chains and financial service provision
- Crypto-asset taxonomy: cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, tokenized financial assets and non-fungible tokens (NFTs)
- Crypto market infrastructure: wallets, custody, exchanges and on-chain settlement
- Interoperability between DLT systems and integration with traditional financial infrastructures

3. Tokenization of Money, Financial and Real Assets
- Stablecoins as tokenized private money
- Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) as tokenized public money: retail and wholesale models
- Tokenization of bank deposits and the evolution of commercial bank money
- Tokenisation of lending
- Tokenization of financial instruments: securities, bonds and derivatives
- Tokenization of collective investment vehicles: tokenized fund shares and money market funds
- Tokenization of real assets: real estate and commodities

4. Systemic Implications of a Tokenized Financial System: Analytical Frameworks
- Bank disintermediation and deposit migration: modeling deposit flows under tokenized alternatives
- Liquidity transformation, token redemptions and issuer run risk: stablecoin reserve structures and fragility analysis
- Stablecoins, currency substitution and monetary sovereignty
- Non-interest vs. interest-bearing tokens and competition between different forms of money
- Monetary transmission, seigniorage and optimal policy design in tokenized systems

5. Regulatory Responses to Tokenization
- Comparative regulatory frameworks for tokenized finance (EU, US and international approaches)
- Prudential treatment of crypto-asset exposures: the Basel standard for banks, capital requirements for tokenized financial claims and the remuneration debate
- KYC/AML/CFT and financial integrity challenges in tokenized systems
- Access to central bank liquidity and lender-of-last-resort in tokenized systems
- Design of tokenized financial systems: public vs private architectures, interoperability and policy trade-offs