Extract from Christopher Niesche’s article “The Digital Asset Revolution: ‘A Massive Opportunity’ for Lawyers”
Digital tokens are emerging as a third asset class, alongside cash and equity—one that lawyers increasingly will need to manage in M&A deals, according to Nick Abrahams, Norton Rose Fulbright’s global co-leader of digital transformation.
The Sydney-based tech lawyer, who is also an innovator, entrepreneur and futurist, has worked on several M&A deals in which tokens have played a role and has also advised on employee incentive schemes that include tokens along with shares.
“What’s become clear is that organizations now effectively have a third asset class,” he said.
Traditionally, a company pursuing an M&A deal either buys the target with cash or with shares or a combination of the two. But times are changing, Abrahams says.
“Now, it’s cash, it’s shares and it’s tokens. It’s a mixture of assets we’ve never seen before.”
To be sure, most of the deals involving tokens that Abrahams has handled to date have been for crypto companies. But he expects the use of tokens to become much more widespread.
