arXiv subjects

Luca Pennella

Publications and source records attributed to Luca Pennella.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

A Taxonomy of Real-World Asset Tokenization for Blockchain-Based Financial Infrastructure

Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization has emerged as a prominent application of blockchain technology, enabling off-chain financial and non-financial assets to be represented through blockchain-based instruments. However, deployed RWA systems remain difficult to compare because legal claims, custody arrangements, token mechanics, verification processes, and on-chain integrations are often described separately. This paper develops a systems-level taxonomy of RWA tokenization to classify how off-chain assets are legally, economically, and technically represented on-chain. Following an iterative taxonomy-development method, we organize twenty-three dimensions into five components: governance, asset structure, token properties, distributed ledger technology, and economy. We apply the taxonomy to twenty major RWA systems selected by market capitalization and compare their design choices across asset classes and implementation models. The classification shows that current RWA tokenization is predominantly implemented through hybrid architectures: blockchain tokens support representation, transfer control, redemption workflows, pricing, and composability, while core legal guarantees remain anchored in off-chain legal wrappers, custodial arrangements, compliance processes, and verification mechanisms. The analysis also reveals recurring documentation gaps concerning voting rights, dispute forums, burn mechanics, supply constraints, and reserve verification. Overall, the taxonomy provides a structured basis for comparing RWA systems, identifying design patterns and limitations, and supporting future research on blockchain-based financial infrastructure.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2026

Designing a Token Economy: Incentives, Governance, and Tokenomics

In recent years, tokenomic systems, decentralized systems that use cryptographic tokens to represent value and rights, have evolved considerably. Growing complexity in incentive structures has expanded the applicability of blockchain beyond purely transactional use. Existing research predominantly examines token economies within specific use cases, proposes conceptual frameworks, or studies isolated aspects such as governance, incentive design, and tokenomics. However, the literature offers limited empirically grounded, end-to-end guidance that integrates these dimensions into a coherent, step-by-step design approach informed by concrete token-economy development efforts. To address this gap, this paper presents the Token Economy Design Method (TEDM), a design-science artifact that synthesizes stepwise design propositions for token-economy design across incentives, governance, and tokenomics. TEDM is derived through an iterative qualitative synthesis of prior contributions and refined through a co-designed case. The artifact is formatively evaluated via the Currynomics case study and additional expert interviews. Currynomics is an ecosystem that maintains the Redcurry stablecoin, using real estate as the underlying asset. TEDM is positioned as reusable design guidance that facilitates the analysis of foundational requirements of tokenized ecosystems. The specificity of the proposed approach lies in the focus on the socio-technical context of the system and early stages of its design.

cs.CE↗

arXiv2025

A Unified Framework and Comparative Study of Decentralized Finance Derivatives Protocols

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications introduce novel financial instruments replicating and extending traditional ones through blockchain-based smart contracts. Among these applications, DeFi derivatives protocols enable the creation and trading of decentralized derivative instruments whose value depends on underlying cryptoassets, indices, or other reference variables. Despite their growing significance, however, they remain relatively understudied compared to other DeFi protocols, such as lending protocols and decentralized exchanges. This paper systematically analyzes DeFi derivatives protocols, categorized into perpetuals, options, and synthetics, with the aim of comparing their instrument structures, protocol mechanisms, operational dynamics, and economic agents. We provide a formal characterization of the main classes of decentralized derivative instruments and develop a protocol-agnostic framework that connects instrument-level specifications, market-state variables, and protocol-level mechanisms. We complement the analytical framework with numerical simulations that evaluate how derivative positions evolve under varying economic conditions, including changes in underlying asset prices, volatility, protocol-specific fees, and leverage. Overall, this study provides a structured analytical framework for understanding and comparing the design and functioning of decentralized finance derivatives protocols.

cs.GT↗

arXiv2025

Money in Motion: Micro-Velocity and Usage of Ethereums Liquid Staking Tokens

We introduce a micro-velocity framework for analysing the on-chain circulation of Lidos liquid-staking tokens, stETH, and its wrapped ERC-20 form, wstETH. By reconstructing full transfer and share-based accounting histories, we compute address-level velocities and decompose them into behavioural components. Despite their growing importance, the micro-level monetary dynamics of LSTs remain largely unexplored. Our data reveal persistently high velocity for both tokens, reflecting intensive reuse within DeFi. Yet activity is highly concentrated: a small cohort of large addresses, likely institutional accounts, are responsible for most turnover, while the rest of the users remain largely passive. We also observe a gradual transition in user behavior, characterized by a shift toward wstETH, the non-rebasing variant of stETH. This shift appears to align with DeFi composability trends, as wstETH is more frequently deployed across protocols such as AAVE, Spark, Balancer, and SkyMoney. To make the study fully reproducible, we release (i) an open-source pipeline that indexes event logs and historical contract state, and (ii) two public datasets containing every Transfer and TransferShares record for stETH and wstETH through 2024-11-08. This is the first large-scale empirical characterisation of liquid-staking token circulation. Our approach offers a scalable template for monitoring staking asset flows and provides new, open-access resources to the research community.

cs.ET↗

arXiv2024

Decision Predicate Graphs: Enhancing Interpretability in Tree Ensembles

Understanding the decisions of tree-based ensembles and their relationships is pivotal for machine learning model interpretation. Recent attempts to mitigate the human-in-the-loop interpretation challenge have explored the extraction of the decision structure underlying the model taking advantage of graph simplification and path emphasis. However, while these efforts enhance the visualisation experience, they may either result in a visually complex representation or compromise the interpretability of the original ensemble model. In addressing this challenge, especially in complex scenarios, we introduce the Decision Predicate Graph (DPG) as a model-agnostic tool to provide a global interpretation of the model. DPG is a graph structure that captures the tree-based ensemble model and learned dataset details, preserving the relations among features, logical decisions, and predictions towards emphasising insightful points. Leveraging well-known graph theory concepts, such as the notions of centrality and community, DPG offers additional quantitative insights into the model, complementing visualisation techniques, expanding the problem space descriptions, and offering diverse possibilities for extensions. Empirical experiments demonstrate the potential of DPG in addressing traditional benchmarks and complex classification scenarios.

cs.LG↗