Marechale Capital (AIM:MAC) plc, Marechale Capital (AIM:MAC), the AIM-quoted digital merchant bank, announced on Thursday that Coral Futures Corporation had launched the scheme on Blubird, its wholly owned subsidiary.
Tokenisation is the process of converting ownership rights in a physical or financial asset into a digital record, known as a token, that can be tracked and traded on a blockchain, a shared digital ledger.
Each tokenised ‘Reef Section’ represents an ownership interest in one square metre of cultivated coral located in Western Australia, with the precise rights attached to each token set out in accompanying legal contracts.
Coral Futures, a Western Australian company with three decades of experience in coral cultivation, holds 45% of the state's coral quota and operates under government approvals to manage the ecosystem.
The pilot is designed to scale to two million reef sections at full build-out, which the companies estimate would be worth approximately $2 billion.
The programme has four token classes covering supporters, corporate contributors, marine-impact remediation and restricted investment subject to financial services licensing.
Industrial operators can acquire reef sections as structured offsets for documented marine impact, while individuals can hold sections directly or participate through the regulated investment class.
Blubird will earn revenue through a software licensing and royalty model, charging fees of between 0.5% and 2% on each transaction conducted through the platform.
Marechale says it has no control over when, or whether, buyers and sellers complete transactions, meaning it cannot guarantee the timing of any fee income.
Patrick Booth-Clibborn, chief executive of Marechale Capital (AIM:MAC), described the launch as a significant milestone that demonstrated the group's ability to support institutional-scale programmes in asset classes that conventional market infrastructure cannot accommodate.
Corey Billington, chief executive of Blubird, said the platform was built to solve the central problem facing Coral Futures, which was proving ownership of its reef sections in a way that a spreadsheet could not.
Wayne McKenzie-Brown, founder of Coral Futures, said that after 26 years working the reef, the most difficult challenge had never been the marine work itself but establishing verifiable records of ownership.
He added that operators seeking to use a reef section as evidence of remediation needed to be able to prove their holding independently, rather than relying on the company's word.