From Tokenization to Real Yield: Scaling Agriculture as a Regulated Asset Class — Vladimir Cvejic

Test, test. Perfect. Hi, welcome everyone. My name is Vladimir. Thanks for the warm warm introduction and the research.

I really appreciate that and having us here again is something that we do aim to achieve every single year and support as much as we are supported. Uh my name is Vladimir I am the CTO of the company called Treasury. We started as a as a startup. We are still a little bit of that and then the and the actual company as we like to say and today as you can see from the from the screens, I will be taking talking about what it actually takes to run a regulated RW A real world assets tokenization platform in in production. Much more important than that, I will have to do a little bit of the pivot right now and talk about the metrics that currently we are not really proud of.

Um but it is related to what we do. Not the fires but what we can do about it. Unfortunately as as I'm speaking we are now fighting with the wildfires and the those are some metrics that we can see they are growing every single second, every single minute, every single day. We we can already see that more than 1500 hectares of the Deliblatska Pescara Deliblatska Sands is burning. More than 400 people are currently fighting the fires and that means that we will have to as of this moment replant 5100 trees in order to replenish the the fires.

Again, this is something that we are not really proud. There is something that we can do about it and that we are hopefully doing every every every moment. Just so you know, so you can see this is more than 78,100 tons of the carbon dioxide absorbed actually absorbed into the into the air right now. Sorry, that would be in the 500,000 trees if we replanted it. What this means and what you can see on the on the screen, those are the actual satellite images from the from the fires itself.

We can see that more than 705,000 tons have been released. This means that this is years of the carbon stored that was released in a matter of the days just because of the fires. Again, what we can do is to replant those trees. And as a treasury, that's exactly what we do even before the fires. We like our nature, we like our country, we like the the earth as it is and we try to plant those those trees and also earn some money, earn some profit from it and also give back to to the earth.

What what I can tell about it, obviously that if just just 500,000 people have planted one single tree, this would mean that we are good to go and to replenish all of the all of the burned burned trees. Obviously, I'm not going to talk about it anymore. This was just a little bit about it as I said just so you you know what is currently happening, what we should do, what we can do. I will be talking about the tokenization. And what we did what we did to get us where we are, which you will see in a few slides from from from now on.

What was the bottleneck? As we as you might know, working in the agriculture is isn't really easy. You have to have the land whether you lease it or you own it, it doesn't really matter, you have to have it. You have to have the agronomy experience which not everyone has. You can obviously hire a professional to help you, but that's just another segment.

In our example where we we grow the the that that means that there's that's four decades of the of the maintenance. It's not a few years, it's it's something that will be there for team for the multi-generation, and that's 40 years of the pruning, um thinning, harvesting, and all of that stuff. And then, last but not least, is the the marketplace, a buyer um that nobody as they're starting the in the agriculture, nobody's really thinking of, which we believe is the most important um thing of the um agriculture, no matter the tokenization. Um What we did As uh as announced, we did prove the concept. Those are the metrics that we have now in our first plantation.

We have tokenized and raised more than 1.5 million in tokens. We have more than 120 investors from around the globe, to be exact, um from the three continents. And we have planted 53 hectares of the hazelnut um in the in the Choka in the Serbia Vojvodina. Um what it means for the business, it means that um at the end of the day, we can say that it costs 5% of the actual raise um to to get us there.

We can talk about it um from the uh from the from the metrics, but the um we we take all of the expenses and everything from the raise, we can say that it's only 5%. That's very important for the um investors or any issuer on the on the tokenization platforms. Um Now, as of as of today, we have uh two approvals. Uh one regulator, and as he says, uh zero shortcuts. What it really means, we we've issued our first one, we have proven the concept.

I was in the 2024 with the SEC of Serbia. And uh just last year, we have issued another one, another um white paper. Uh it has been announced uh uh successful uh in uh 2026, and it is currently ongoing. So, everyone can um still invest and join this um community of growing trees and um earning back some some income. Um that's as for the um for the investment and the tokenization itself.

I will be talking about the tokenization platform in um in a second or so. Um as I mentioned, the hazelnut tree is a 40-year cash flow instrument and that is very important when it comes to the uh tokenization. The tokenization itself is fine. Um most everyone can do that, but the asset is what matters. Asset is much more important than the platform, than the tokenization, than the infrastructure and the added and the added the day as well as the um technology that runs it.

Uh we can see here that uh this is how we operate for the for the hazelnut trees. I'm not going to talk in into every single one, but if anyone wants to um reach out and learn more about it, um I I'll we'll be more than happy to introduce my colleague who is our agronomist and who actually runs this business for for us. So, it's not not just me, which you will see um at the at the end. Um about the tokenization itself, compliance is something that is very important that we have learned from from from day one. Obviously, compliance isn't a future, it's it's the product.

I know not everyone likes um compliance, regulatory and and all of that, but in our in our business, it's very important and we are proud to say that we are compliant and we are regulated. Uh what we thought that we were building at the beginning was a platform with a compliance um attached, but that obviously wasn't the case. Uh what we actually are building and have built is [clears throat] a compliance system that happens to have a platform attached. So, as I said, this all be the whole business is compliant and regulated um and it currently runs across um across the and around the um around the globe. Um as you can see from here, uh Um, the regulation, as I mentioned, is not really a safe a safe net.

Um, they will not help your business. Uh, they're just there there to evaluate your idea, um, to help you to get there, to release the white paper, and to start to start building. But they obviously they do not guarantee about your asset. They do not guarantee about your business. They will be checking what you say in your white paper, and that's that's where the where it's important.

You still need to cover all of the insurance, the deposits, um, um, the investor protections, and all of that on your own. So, they will be checking that and confirming where everything you say is, um, right, where everything you say is in the papers. But obviously they will not be enforcing that for you. So, it's still on the issuer to make sure that they still are compliant even after releasing and, um, issuing the, um, the white paper. Uh, the standard, a little bit about the technology.

I'm not going to get uh, deep very deep into this one, but why we have decided to go into the ERC-3643, aka T-Rex, instead of the, um, ERC-20. Obviously, it is permissioned. That was very important for us when we started. Um, everyone knows that on the ERC-20 as, um, as a security token, you can transfer, um, the tokens simply, but it's not permissioned. It's not regulated.

And obviously there's so many issues with that later on that a, um, uh, will get you, um, will actually not get you compliant across the all of the jurisdictions that do support the tokenization nowadays, which is quite a quite a large number. Um, on the right hand side, uh, a little bit of the of the geeky stuff, uh, we can see that, um, it actually checks whether someone is verified, whether, um, they do compliance models, allow that, um, are they frozen, not frozen, is the token paused, and etc., and etc. So, all of that can be enforced by a government or any other third party if if needed at any certain point of the tokenization. So, that was one of the reasons why I have decided to go um, in that in that direction.

And obviously, identity stays on chain, compliance models, recovery possible. When When I say recovery possible, one of the biggest issues that we had um asked by the investors and potential investors is, "What happens if I lose my keys? What happens if I lose my wallet?" And this This is like 40 years, as you've seen, 40 years worth of the um project. It's not a a few months, it's multi-generation, it's decades worth project.

And obviously, if you lose it, previously, you would lose your assets. That's not the case with the ERC-3643 and the recovery that we have, which means that with a proper uh paperwork, we can get your tokens back, um which obviously is regulated as well uh and enforced if needed. Um as of today, as I said, uh we do have our own assets and we have our own tokenization platform, so we can now issue tokens for the third parties. We currently have two of our own and we do have two in exploration and onboarding at the moment. Tokenizations, unfortunately, I cannot really talk about that um any more than than this because of the NDAs, but I'm happy to say that a few other companies and few other industries have um identified this as the as the future as um as well.

Um Onboarding, what what it looks like, as I said, regulated and compliant which means that we are enforced to um have everyone uh KYC KYB'd, on-chain identity claim issued, um subscriptions, payment, and all of that is part of the application. Uh so, all of that can and will be on the on the platform if you're willing to join us. This is what the process actually looks like. Everything is, I would like to say, um for the less geeky persons here in in general, um web 2 um feeling like and experience. [clears throat] So, it's not really Web3 where you need to have a very extensive experience and and knowledge of how the blockchain works.

So, you whoever is not in the blockchain, which I guess is hard to say here, but whoever is not can actually join and um get get themselves on the on the platform and enjoy um this community. Um the asset again, the asset is the most important uh thing of the of this kind of tokenization. Um in our in our case, as I said, um the orchids um does not care that it's tokenized. And that that's important. Uh we can actually put these two businesses aside and have them work simultaneously.

If it wasn't for the tokenization, this would this would still work. Um the the agriculture would still work. And vice versa. But for the tokenization, if there is no asset, it would most likely die after a certain time because it's not nothing is powering the tokenization. So, in this example, we can we can see that um the the tokenized asset is obviously um not just evaluated, but also um produced and held by by our partners.

We are working close with the Biosense Institute, the Agrosense for the precision agriculture, for the uh smart agriculture as well, and forcing all of the um all of the AI and everything that should be in the agriculture nowadays, uh which also brings us um to the point where we can actually um you know, get the um CO2 credits as well, which I was mentioning at the beginning of this uh presentation, why it is important for the nature and for the um uh for the world itself. So, um about the investment itself, um we like to say that we trust in uh in this project very much. So, we do have the principal first and then the split, which means whoever invested and is willing to invest in the agriculture through the treasury and the tokenization, they will first get their money back and [snorts] only then we do split the um income from the from the actual agriculture produce. Uh so, that could be a 9 years, it could be 10 years, it really depends on how good um those um seasons are and depending on the initial investment because we do have some some bonuses and whatnot which is explained on our website. Um just something that I feel like is important 11 to 15 is um what we like to say that um uh term yield um throughout the 40 years of the um of the product.

Sorry. Um every tree is also a carbon instrument. I mentioned that. Uh and I mentioned that very specifically in the first two slides. Um so, we know that planting trees is not just a a shade that we get in front of our house, it also helps the helps the future, helps the future generations, and um also absorbs those uh carbon dioxide from the from the air, from the fires, from the industries, and and whatnot.

This is very important for us because we do um accredit those as well and we um pay back for the credits that we get from the um from the trees, which means there's a part of the return plan and return investment throughout the 40 years as soon as the trees are mature enough to produce the um carbon credits. Great. Um one of the things in the in the agriculture that was um a problem and still a problem without the tokenization and this is where the tokenization really matters is the secondary market, the billboards, the uh general trade, and how to get out of your investment. So, you're not locked for the 40 years, 10 years, 5 years, um no matter which agriculture asset you choose, you will get stuck for the amount of time. So, obviously in the tokenization we know that the in the use of the secondary markets and the and the trades, again enforce that everyone says compliant, you can get either the whole of your investment or in the in the segments, aka pieces of your investment, you can actually exchange for either another token, money, crypto, or or stable coins, whatever whatever you like depending on the secondary market and and the system that supports it.

[clears throat]

I think I mentioned all of this and went through. So, I'm not going to really deep dive into this, but five things that nobody told us a few years back is that compliance is the architecture. We've learned the hard way that investors are not crypto users. Those are seeking mainly seeking something that is turned way quicker than than the 40 years. This is more of the stable investment.

This is more of the multi-generation investment. We are more than happy to have the crypto investors, but again this is something that we learned the hard way. The asset sets the schedule and not the opposite. 40 years in our example. In the next few months hopefully we will have another offer that is not as long.

Verify once, issue many. Obviously, once we've issued the first white paper, it was way easier for the second one. With just a few variables and we were we were there. I'm going to I'm going to speed up and just get what is important. On the asset or use the engine.

This is how you can actually work with us. One is for the investors. You can get on board and invest in the in those trees and help us plant and help this this nature. And for the issuers, we do have our tokenization platform. We can get your tokens issued for whatever the asset you want no matter where you are in the world all of the jurisdictions most likely are are supported through the standards and the support that we can we can provide.

The risk statement I'm not going to go through all of that but it is something that we are proud to state. And last but not least I'm not the only one working on this one in the matter of fact I am just the in charge of the platform those are the people that have helped us get us there from from very recognized companies a few I can mention the Ferrero the General Electrics the BCG Group and etc. and etc. This is the people that stands behind the treasury and they did help us to to get us there. That's it for me.

Thank you very much for listening and any questions?