Tokenizing Real-World Assets Could Transform Global Banking

Hey, welcome back to another episode of Riding Bulls and Taming Bears.

I'm so privileged today to have Tom Sennenfelder with me, uh, who is literally the original guy who tokenized carbon credits, digital assets, literally almost a year before Bitcoin even launched.

So he's been in this industry for about 20 years.

I'm so excited to have him here today as the world is talking about real-world assets, monetization, and where things are headed.

Tom, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So just walk us through a little bit of the journey, uh, of where you started, what happened, what were you trying to accomplish that's kind of led us to where we are right now.

I had a mentor.

His name was Howard Fuller.

Um, he was a former director and partner at Pete Marwick, integral in creating KPMG.

He's come to me and said, I have a project for you.

And that project was taking what was new at the time called Red plus, um, uh, carbon and making it to where it could trade, and not only trade, but be bankable.

So, he presented me with a problem, and that journey in in figuring out how to take property, put it in the bank, and make it to where it was tradable.

It was an incredible journey and learning experience at the same time for me.

Wow.

And so, talking about where the world is headed right now, there's a lot of people that are talking about real world assets, whether it's real estate, it's oil in the ground, it's metals in the ground, or metals above ground.

Uh, walk us through what's different between what you have put together, and where the rest of the industry is kind of at right now.

Well, Let's look at the rest of the industry first.

They're using something called an NSPV with a wrapper.

Typically it's insurance or something else.

It's wrapping a real-world asset.

They're taking a real-world asset, putting in a special purpose vehicle, and then selling you a token that's based upon the ownership of the special-purpose vehicle, which in itself is just a security.

You're not actually attached to the real-world asset.

And if there's an issue with the SPV, you could be at risk of your capital's at risk because of any exposure that that real-world asset could have.

The difference from what we have done and what we're currently doing and have been doing is we take the real world asset using the existing banking procedures and processes and we put those assets into a custodial bank.

Then once they're in a custodial bank, optionally, we can get a QSIP number on the issue we write and an ISIN number for trainability and.

Make a new token, but when you buy our tokens, you're actually getting a divided, a divided piece of that real world asset, and your risk is almost nothing because you own the asset, unlike, unlike others where you just own the SPV.

Wow, so what you're saying is that you have the ability to actually take those physical things that actually are, and instead of having and creating a derivative, some version of a contract that doesn't necessarily bind it to something, you actually are binding these ideas to these real-world assets, and you can make it bankable.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

Think of it, think of a car.

When you go to the dealership and you buy a brand new car, OK?

You get a title.

That title is, is the document that says that you own that car.

In a sense, we're creating a token that is a smart title.

And as you trade, that title is like a smart deed.

It trades.

And it's evidence of who actually owns the physical asset.

Unlike the SPV model, you don't own the car.

The SPV owns the car.

It's very different.

I think a lot of the challenge has been that people are tokenizing these ideas, these projects, and then they're not able to actually monetize them.

They're not able to actually derive the income from them.

So when you can relate this back to the bank.

And the bank can ultimately lend against it.

I think that you're creating something that is ultimately very new, very different.

How does this change the landscape for lending, uh, maybe even governments around the world?

Would you touch on that for a second?

Well, we're looking at traditionally what would be considered an illiquid asset.

So we're taking an illiquid asset and putting it into a bank where it becomes a little bit more liquid and easier for a bank to use.

And lend against.

Now if you're looking at a nation, nations have a lot of hidden value.

We call it the cash.

Our system we termed is called cachette.

Cachette meaning it's the intrinsic hidden value in everything around us.

So, on a nation level, we're working on something that we call a resource-based treasury obligation.

And there's a very, very big difference between an RBTO and say a standard, a treasury note.

So instead of a nation having to sell their debt, a nation can, can secure against a real-world asset and lend it to a bank.

Now, the model that I built was, say at a 10% coupon rate, the, the bank will pay an interest of 10% for the obligation on that note.

So what does that really mean?

What it means is, is this.

We can settle the debt very quickly, OK.

The banks can leverage that RBTO, say 20 to 1, so their interest on the actual note is minuscule.

So if they say a treasury sells that, or excuse me, lends that note to a bank at 10% rate.

And they leverage it, say just 10 to 1, you got to do the math very quickly.

That's 1% interest on that money that they're paying the government for.

So we unlock finance, but simultaneously that 10% being paid back, 5% of that can settle the national debt in approximately, depending on the size of the initial issues, could settle the debt in 15 years.

Wow.

So literally, this could be one of the answers to one of the biggest issues that people are bringing up right now.

The national debt's been out of control.

We've got to continue to print.

We've got.

Continue to sell treasuries.

We've got to continue to do all this stuff, but what you're saying is off the balance sheet right now in, let's say Yellowstone National Park, we've got assets and things that are in the ground, and this is something that the United States government or other nations around the world could tokenize.

And actually move their their nation into the 21st century with less debt obligation, less taxes on uh on the average person citizen.

Yeah, that's the hidden value.

That's that cash that's in the ground that we want to unlock for everyone.

When, when I came up with the idea of an RBTO.

The idea in my mind was, I need something that does not inflect, will not affect inflation, but will lower it, will take money out of, out of the markets today, but expand lending from the banks.

So somebody would say, well, if banks are leveraging it up and putting all this money out there, you'd think inflation would go up.

But if the government is using a, a large portion of the interest they're getting back to settle the national debt that's out there, it's actually doing the opposite because as we pull that debt out.

We're not affecting the inflation rate because with the, with the additional capitals being able to be lent at the banking level.

Wow, this is revolutionary, no question.

So if we're thinking about this in 21st century ideas, what is it that needs to change maybe on a legislative level?

Well, we have to look at policies and we have to look at the regulations that are currently in place.

We only look at certain assets as being a tier one asset when there are many other assets that could be listed as a tier one asset when fully secured on an obligation.

For example, oil in the ground, if fully secured, would be, should be considered a tier one asset for a bank to leverage.

Right, wow, that, that, that's outstanding.

So, as you're looking at the future, and what this could ultimately Bringing by way of change, uh, what do you think's gonna be affected here maybe in the next like 5, 10 years, uh, in the most significant ways?

I think some of the things that'll be affected is the way we lend and the way the banks operate.

See, in my discussions with a lot of the banking professionals, they don't have the tools yet in order to use the digital asset the way we use the digital asset.

They're still stuck in a box.

Where, where we take that box and we think outside the box and if that doesn't work, we throw that away, we make a new box and we think outside that box.

Banks are stuck within a specific framework, but we can plug ourselves directly into the framework and transform the banks with all the tools that we currently have that meet their requirements.

Wow.

So what you're saying is you're unlocking value that's just off balance sheet right now.

Gives us the ability to probably lower interest rates, I'm assuming for mortgages and other things out here if banks have new assets and collateral to be able to hold this tier one assets and ultimately lend to the rest of the world.

I mean this is, this is revolutionary, Tom.

Thank you.

So, um, so you're the first guy to do it by utilizing the, uh, the existing laws.

That's uh that that that that have been out here that that exists, that makes it a framework that banks will accept.

And ultimately, uh, brings it into a more digital asset.

So when we talk about digital assets and why this could be important, talk to us just a little bit about how tokenization can be valuable within this, uh, and ultimately, uh, like maybe keeping the data, transact quicker, uh, speak to that.

Look at a county, they have a register of deeds office, OK.

They have these old paper records.

Now using the new UCC 12, they can transform all the offices around the United States to a digital format.

At the same time, we can eliminate the deed fraud.

By tokenizing all the contracts, so we get speed of the actual contracts, we get a more secure contract.

And simultaneously, we reduce the amount of time, effort, and labor in order to close a project or in this case, real estate transaction.

Wow, this is just fascinating information.

So we're gonna jump to a break and we'll be back with you here in just a moment.

I have, uh, with me here today, Tom Sennenfelder, CEO and Eman Ashfar, the COO of Vanward Global.

Guys, it is really exciting to have you with us.

Obviously, Tom has just shared with us some of the most, uh, exciting news that I've found, uh, in real-world assets tokenization.

The banks are changing.

Could you just tell us a little bit about Vanward Global and what you guys are doing?

Sure, so Vanward Global was, uh, established a couple of years ago, uh, back in 2024, and we are a service provider.

We're a consultancy firm, and we help clients, uh, analyze their assets, uh, all the way through, uh, valuation and tokenization.

Wow.

So talk to us just a little bit about like maybe what your process looks like as we're taking these ideas that may be even sitting in the ground.

How do we actually know that they're there?

Well.

It it's really unique process.

Unlike anybody else in the room, we focus on what that asset really is, the value of that asset, so we'll start out with confirming or validating what that asset is, where it is, and it's.

To me it's always been a confirmation of the chain of title, who really owns that asset, and it's a confirmation of the value of the asset.

So we have to actually qualify and quantify what's there, whether it's real estate, an in-ground, uh, reserve of some sort, whether it's oil, gas, gold, silver.

There's a whole process that exists in today's world that has existed for years.

We apply that first and foremost to what we do.

Interesting.

And so give me an idea of, of just like some different types of projects that you guys have worked on.

I mean, obviously there's, there's assets that you still wanna get out.

There's assets that you might cause to remain there as we were talking a little bit earlier.

Uh, give us some real world examples here.

Sure.

So we have clients that come to us that have, uh, art collections.

Uh, we.

Work with clients that have in ground mineral reserves, oil reserves, gold reserves, uh, and then we also have clients who have real estate, land, commercial real estate, so in all cases we analyze that asset, we, uh, confirm the asset, the ownership records, the evaluation records, what's truly there.

And once we've assessed what's truly there, then we provide options to their clients.

So whether they want to create carbon credits off of an in-ground oil reserve or simply tokenize an in-ground gold reserve, um, so our our steps are twofold.

One is to assess the asset, provide the optionalities to our clients, and then move them through the process to create the actual issues.

Interesting.

And so you mentioned carbon credits.

Is that just because that's like a common denominator as oil would burn and then it creates carbon and that can be, so yes, it, it, it is in one, in one respect.

So for one of her clients recently, they had an oil reserve and they wanted to drill the reserve in an urban area.

So they came to us and they wanted to unlock this reserve because of rules and regulations and restrictions where they were, they weren't sure what they could do with what they had.

So, The first phase of what we did is we confirmed the ownership through a chain of through a very, very detailed chain of title, but deeper than anybody else would do.

So we read every single document, we analyze every aspect of what's in those old documents.

So, in this case, we traced, it was in California, we traced the chain of title from the Spanish land grants all the way forward to present.

Within the documents we found deed restrictions and and lifting of those restrictions and the dates when those restrictions be lifted, unlocking that reserve.

So it's what we do, it's how we do it and then once we told the client, well.

You know, you think you own property X, and I'm sorry, you don't own property X.

You actually own X plus.

They were shocked.

So people don't read what they have and don't understand what's in those documents.

They actually doubled their property after we were done for what they had in the ground.

Then after we do that, the fun part for me is, I look at that and go, OK, let's quantify this.

You know, people are saying, oh, there's no oil there.

It's they're oil wells.

So we bring in the same method you would find in the oil industry in this case, to do a probabilistic oil and gas report to establish what that quantity is and what the, um, quality of that oil is in that ground.

So we're qualifying the property, we're qualifying what, what the asset itself is.

And we're using the existing rules.

So once we're done with what we do there, then we can take the asset and stick it into a trust bank.

But in case of the harving credit.

We actually go through an A ANAB accreditation for an ISO 14,064-3, accreditation model for what we've done.

It's a lot of, uh, lingo, so to speak, but We don't just sit there and say it's a handshake deal or no, we think we have this when we say we have something for a client, we mean it.

You know, it's really a good point.

You know, whether the assets are in the ground and you can know that they're there with probability, or they've been harvested and now they're sitting in a vault someplace or in a container someplace, I mean, what's the difference?

I mean, the difference is, I know that it's there.

One's been harvested and brought up, the other's just still remaining in the ground.

So I mean, I guess that makes a lot of sense, uh, as we're looking at these particular contracts.

And things, um, so is this something that you're just doing in the United States?

Can this law be applied internationally?

Uh, give me some thoughts on that, Iman.

Yeah, so ISO, uh, is an international standard, so we can apply it to, uh, international, uh, assets for carbon credit development.

But what separates our carbon credit methodology is that when a buyer purchases these carbon credits, they not only get the credits, but they actually get title to the underlying asset itself that's been locked up.

So you can put it on on book treatment.

It's institutional grade.

It's recognized by the banks as a commodity carbon credit.

Yeah, so let's just say that we're not gonna leave the asset in the ground, but we wanna harvest it.

Give me an example of how that might play out in the real world.

Well, let's, let's just take what everybody loves, gold or silver for that matter, OK?

There's something that's called a streaming contract.

The streaming contract is where, um, you can forward sell the product that's in the ground, right, to an awaiting buyer.

OK, but we do it in a fashion.

I like to do it in a fashion that is product subtlety.

So we'll qualify and quantify what's in that ground, OK.

Then after we do that, we'll be able to put that, that asset into the bank.

OK.

Then we draw the contract.

OK, now that contracts actually can get a QSIP and ISIN number on it because of what we're attached to and what, how we do it.

So once we have the contract in place, they're gonna, they will have the ability to either leverage it in a bank or forward sell the producible gold to an awaiting buyer.

Buyer will get a substantial discount, and as the gold gets vaulted, he will get an asset identification number for his gold that he bought.

Showing it's in this vault in this in this location, and it's yours.

The token that he receives, which will have the AIN number on it.

Is his proof that he owns what's in that vault, but we're using a different process when we create our tokens.

We create an asset identification number.

Think of it like the um the VIN on your car, OK, OK.

It tells you everything about that asset inclusive of the contract.

Identification for who that buyer is.

So it's a, it's a numerical contract number for the buyer attached to the AIF.

So the combination of the, all the data tells the token who's that owner at the time and what that asset is, where it's located, what type of asset it is, every little thing you can think about.

So, what if we have a large gold bar.

The owner only bought say 2 ounces that I borrow.

OK, OK, we can.

Model the bar and show individual slices of that bar and apply an AIN number to each slice of that bar.

Just like you could do for art, just like you could do for other things.

So we've done it for art.

For example, I'll give you an example.

Take a da Vinci, right?

You can take a da Vinci and divide that ownership off of the da Vinci, not fractionalize, and it's a substantial difference.

OK.

Dividing means that you own that little piece that you bought.

Fractionalizing means you own a share of the whole thing with a whole bunch of other people.

It's like ownership in common versus Uh It's hard to explain, but it's like ownership account say versus.

I own it with a whole bunch of other people at the same time.

So your new slice is a hole.

So it's the, the, the pie divided in the pan, but you don't actually separate the pie from the pan.

You just got a piece of the hole that's, that's in there.

That's correct.

But your hole, your piece is a new hole.

OK.

All right, but we're not gonna divide it.

This unlocks the hidden value within that artwork.

So that artwork.

In many instances are sitting in bolts.

They're sitting in storage warehouses on shelves, and they're increasing value every year.

OK, so this gives us the ability to take them out, get them into galleries, get them into museums, let people see them.

You could walk up and say, hey, I own a slice of that.

And so the point is that by owning a slice of that you can find the appreciation with those particular pieces or the gold, and I think this is really an important idea right now.

I mean, in 2025 for the first time in better than 50 years, more sovereign nations owned gold.

Than they did the US Treasury, and that was a significant shift.

That's one that's that's caused great concern for me.

And so by being able to take these real world assets, whether they're in ground, above ground, or some variation in between, um, we're able to now create a solution that is both bankable and monetizable.

That streaming contract's really, really unique though.

Yeah, OK.

It was applied originally in the oil and gas industry, fascinating, and then it was moved to the metals industry.

But most streaming contracts are just done as a hard contract, hard paper.

We've digitized that process and added flexibility to the same contract.

So your token is your ownership of that item that you've bought.

And if it's in the ground and they're mining it or pumping it or, or, or.

Say Producing it because it's the same process, the same model could be used at manufacturing level for manufacturers.

You own that item.

And The difference is, is, is it attached to the an enterprise or not.

In many instances we're not attached to the enterprise or exposed, so you go around the Howie test.

Wow.

OK.

In other instances, they, they may say, well, you can get a royalty on that from the operation.

Well, then it, it changes the makeup of how that token works and what that model is, then if you consider it a security, it's actually conditional depending on what the client wants and what the industry is asking.

Wow.

So, are there any parts of this process that It would be really helpful if there's a regulator that's watching this right now, uh, that, that, that would be helpful to bring this type of transformation into the real world.

I think you can confirm this for me, but I think it's the policy when it comes down to what's a tier one asset.

But that's really the key, key piece if I have 15 million barrels of oil in the ground.

Qualified, quantified, fully secured.

I should be able to use that as a tier one asset and lend that to a bank.

The US government should be able to sit down and look at what it has in its cars and other properties and say, we have this reserve in this location.

Let's create an RBTO against that reserve and unlock that value to the benefit of not just our banks, but to the benefit of our country.

Mhm.

Wow.

Well, guys, thank you so much for your time here today.

Uh, you guys are obviously very busy.

I'm sure you've got, uh, a, a lot of people here, uh, that are, that are interested in understanding more so not just about tokenization, but about how to do tokenization of real-world assets in a way that can actually integrate into the real world right now in the 21st century.

So I just wanna say, uh, thank you for being with us, uh, excited for Vanward and your future, and, uh, we look forward to, uh, to watching the journey.

Thank you.

Pleasure to be here.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, hey guys, thank you so much for, for joining us here today.

Um, you know, there was a lot of information, uh, a lot of new ideas, uh, shared, but ultimately, I think 21st century problems being answered as a result of, uh, the methodology and things that these guys have been forerunning here for nearly two decades.

Uh, and I think this is the moment where we're gonna ultimately see transformation take place and real-world adoption.

So until next time, God bless you and uh we'll see you on Riding Bulls and Taming Bears.