Asset Tokenization Studio (ATS), in plain English

This note explains what ATS is, why it is called a “studio,” and what it can do.

The app explainer is README-non-technical.md. How the whole app flows: README-flow.md. The technical README is README.md.

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Is it a studio?

It is not a film studio or an art studio. “Studio” here is a product name, like a workshop: a place with tools to make something.

Same idea as:

• A recording studio — mics, mixing desk, rooms. You walk in with a song; you walk out with a finished track.
• Android Studio — Google’s workshop for making phone apps. You do not film anything.
• A photo studio — lights and backdrops, not a random phone snapshot.

Asset Tokenization Studio is Hedera’s workshop for turning a real thing that has value into an official digital share with rules (who can hold it, can it be sold, when is interest paid).

Break the name down:

Hedera built it so a bank or a company does not have to invent “how do we issue a legal-ish digital bond?” from scratch.

A token here means a digital certificate of ownership (like a share certificate on a computer), not a joke coin.

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Everyday examples of what you would “make”

An apartment building. Instead of one person owning the whole building, you issue 1,000 digital shares. Only checked investors can hold them. Rent can be paid out as a coupon.

A company. Like paper stock certificates, but digital. Voting and dividends go through the studio’s tools.

A government or company bond. “Lend us money, we pay you interest on a schedule.” ATS has a bond type for that.

This app. Invoice bonds and harvest shares. The Operator desk uses ATS to print one locked certificate, mint one unit per unique pledger, freeze it, and optionally unpause — instead of inventing a joke coin. Sending the raise to the founder and splitting a cut back to minted pledgers is a plain treasury transfer, not an ATS Mass Payout. See Settlement. Units are one each, not sized to the pledge — One bond, many holders.

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Two things you can make

Equity (a share)
You own a slice of something. Example: 100 digital shares in an apartment building. If the building pays profit, you may get a slice. You might also vote.

Bond (an IOU / loan)
You lent money; they promise to pay you back, often with a small extra on a schedule. Example: “We owe you for that freight invoice; when the customer pays us, we pay you.” An invoice-receivable listing in this app is this kind.

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Features, in plain language

This is Hedera’s full ATS product, not only what Zikibols uses.

Issue (create)
Print the official digital certificates.
Example: “Create 1,000 shares of this greenhouse.”

Mint (hand out)
Give some of those certificates to a person.
Example: “Give Alice 1 share because she chipped in.”

Cap the supply
Set a max so nobody secretly prints extra.
Example: “Never more than 1,000 shares, like a limited print run of concert tickets.”

Whitelist / control list (allowed list)
Only approved wallets can hold or receive the share.
Example: a members-only club — the door person checks the list before you enter.

Blocklist
Ban specific people from holding it.
Example: “This address is not allowed,” like a barred customer.

KYC / AML (identity and anti-crime checks)
KYC = “know who this person is” (ID check). AML = “this money should not look like crime proceeds.”
Example: a bank asking for a passport before you open an account.

Roles (who is allowed to press which button)
Different jobs: issuer, pauser, compliance officer. Not everyone is the boss.
Example: only the cashier can open the till; only the manager can void a sale.

Pause
Freeze all movement of the shares for a while, then unfreeze when the reason passes.
Example: “Stop trading during an investigation,” like locking the stadium gates and opening them again after.

Lock
Freeze one person’s shares, or hold them until a date.
Example: “Bob’s shares stay frozen for 6 months” (a vesting / waiting period), or “hold them in escrow until the house sale completes.”

Forced transfer (controller move)
A super-user can move shares without the holder’s click, if the law requires it.
Example: a court says “give those shares to the rightful owner.”

Transfer restrictions
You cannot just send the share to anyone, unlike a normal coin.
Example: you can gift a bookstore gift card to a friend; you usually cannot freely gift a private company share without rules.

Coupon (bond interest / scheduled extra)
A planned extra payment to bond holders.
Example: “Every 90 days, pay the invoice backers a little extra.” Zikibols does not use this ATS tool. Pay founder / Pay backers send HBAR from the treasury instead. See Settlement.

Dividend (profit share for equity)
If the company/building made money, send holders a cut.
Example: apartment rent profit split among the 1,000 share holders.

Voting
Share holders vote on a decision.
Example: “Should we sell the building? Yes/No.”

Snapshots
A frozen photo of “who owned how much on Tuesday at 5pm.”
Example: only people on the list that day get the dividend or the vote, so nobody buys a share 1 minute before payout just to grab the cash.

Stock split
Cut each share into smaller pieces, same total value.
Example: 1 pizza → 2 halves. You still own the same amount of pizza.

Redemption
Turn the digital share back in and get cash (or the asset) out.
Example: “The bond matured; we buy your certificate back.”

Holds / escrow
Park shares or money in the middle until a condition is met.
Example: a lawyer holding house-sale money until both sides sign.

Link legal documents
Attach the real PDF (prospectus, contract) to the digital share.
Example: the share on the computer points to “here is the actual loan agreement.”

Wallets
People connect a digital pocket (MetaMask, HashPack, and similar) to hold and manage the share.
Example: the app you use to tap-pay, but for these certificates.

Custody (a professional vault)
Big institutions can store keys in a vault (Dfns, Fireblocks, AWS) instead of on someone’s laptop.
Example: a bank safe instead of cash under the mattress.

A website and a code kit
Non-coders can click through a web UI. Coders can call the same workshop from an app (the SDK — a box of ready-made functions). Zikibols uses the code kit from the Operator desk, not Hedera’s full website.

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What this app actually uses

A small slice:

So ATS is a full workshop. Zikibols is one short job in that workshop: print a locked IOU, freeze it, then send the raise from the same office jar. The founder’s payday is that jar, not another ATS tool.

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Issue bond and Mint share

These are the two Operator desk buttons that create the IOU. They are not the same job, and neither one pays anyone.

Think of a paper share certificate.

Issue bond = print the official blank form and register it.
Mint share = write a person’s name on a copy and hand it to them. You can do this once per unique pledger.

Starting a campaign only pins the flyer. Issue bond is what actually creates the certificate on Hedera.

Issue bond

Creates the campaign’s ATS bond on Hedera testnet — one contract (a “diamond”) cloned from Hedera’s public factory. After this click you get a contract id (0.0.…) and a HashScan link. The listing status becomes Issued.

That write is stored on the campaign as tokenId and issueTxId in .data/state.json (runtime[slug]). It is how the website later knows “this flyer’s IOU is that contract.”

What the bond holds: a name, a ticker, a short memo like zikibols:mtb-full-suspension-bike-frame, plus dummy bond paperwork. Not the pledged amount. Not the story. Not who funded.

What it does not do:

• Give anyone a share. The form exists; nobody holds a copy yet.
• Need a pledger first. You can issue with an empty list, then mint as pledges come in.
• Move the raise. Coins stay in the treasury.

You can only issue once. If the bond is already issued, the button stays off.

Mint share

Hands one unit of that already-issued bond to one wallet. The Operator desk lists each unique pledger (same wallet, summed pledges). Click Mint share on that row. The desk first puts that wallet on the allowed list, then mints.

You can mint again to a different pledger. The same wallet cannot be minted twice. After the first successful mint the listing status becomes Transferred. Each mint is stored in .data/state.json (runtime[slug].mints) with a HashScan tx.

Mint stays off until the bond is issued, and it closes after Pause — until Unpause bond reopens it.

What it does not do:

• Create the bond. That was Issue bond.
• Pay HBAR. Pay founder / Pay backers are later buttons — though Pay backers will not run until every pledger has been minted.
• Size the share to the pledge. A 13 ℏ pledge still mints 1 unit, not 13. Alice who sent 13 ℏ and Bob who sent 50 ℏ each get 1 unit.

Mint to another address is for a wallet that is not on the pledge list (or for HEDERA_BACKER_ACCOUNT_ID).

Order on the desk

Issue bond  →  Mint share (each unique pledger)  →  Pause bond
        →  Pay founder  and/or  Pay backers
                   ↑                    │
                   └── Unpause bond ────┘  (only before either payout)

1. Issue bond — print the official form on Hedera. No share handed out. No cash moved. Once only.
2. Mint share — one click per unique pledger (or an extra address). Puts them on the allowed list, then hands 1 unit. Same wallet cannot be minted twice. Closes after Pause.
3. Pause bond — stamp “cannot be freely sold” on the whole bond. Not per backer. Each Mint share already put that holder on the allowed list. The desk refuses until every pledger is minted. After this, minting is closed and the listing stops taking pledges.
4. Unpause bond — peel that stamp back off. The desk drops to step 2: transfers work again, minting reopens, the listing takes pledges, and Pay founder / Pay backers go back to waiting for a pause. The button only shows while the bond is paused, and it refuses once either payout has run — a settled raise cannot reopen, because new pledges would arrive after the split was already sent.
5. Pay founder / Pay backers — 90 / 10 of the live raise from the treasury. Pay backers only pays wallets holding a share, and refuses to run at all while any pledger is unminted (a modal lists them). Mint everyone before Pause, since Pause closes minting.

The cash pile and the certificate pile are different. Full walk: README-flow.md.

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One bond, many holders — what ATS can do vs what we do

You do not print a separate bond per person. You print one campaign bond (one ATS contract), then hand units to many wallets.

ATS can mint N units sized to the pledge (13 ℏ → 13 units), take a snapshot of “who held what,” then pay a coupon or Mass Payout by that balance. A finished product would treat that balance as the public proof they funded.

This app mints one unit per unique pledger. The Operator desk lists everyone who pledged. Each Mint share click adds that wallet to the allowed list and issues 1 unit of the same bond. HashScan then shows each minted wallet holding 1 of that IOU.

What is still off the bond:

Pay backers pays only wallets that hold a unit, and will not run until every pledger has one. The amount each holder gets still comes from their pledge row, not from the share balance — the units themselves are not proportional (13 ℏ and 50 ℏ both get 1 unit).

Honest list of other holes: README-limitations.md.

Hedera’s own docs: Asset Tokenization Studio.