An asset is any kind of economic resource that can be owned or controlled to produce value. A company’s assets are often recorded on a balance sheet, where the monetary value of an asset is set by an accountant. Assets are widely classified into two major groups – tangible and intangible assets. Tangible assets include vehicles, equipment, real estate, currencies and others. Intangible assets are patents, franchises, trade names, etc. The general interpretation also defines digital assets, software and other computer-based assets as intangible. Some blockchain-based digital assets are called smart assets – cryptocurrency tokens that represent the ownership of some real-world, tangible or intangible asset and are exchanged under the rules of the smart contracts of blockchain it’s based on. Blockchain assets are getting more attention because of their protection from being changed after being recorded in the network.
Mario Draghi, presidente della BCE, ha affermato che le criptovalute non sono una vera e propria forma di denaro, bensì degli asset estremamente rischiosi.