Tokenization and the lex mercatoria

The chapter investigates the lex mercatoria in the tokenized economy, tracing how DLT are reshaping the law merchant and its underlying actors and trade practices. In particular, it explores the renewed creativity of token merchants within the doctrinal evolution of lex mercatoria, now reconfigured by the technological affordances of DLTs, blockchain infrastructures, and token-based economies. The analysis argues that tokenization marks a paradigmatic shift in transnational commercial governance, as technology assumes an unprecedented regulatory role, shaping both markets and the self-organising communities that sustain them. Building on this premise, the chapter identifies the key foundations of the emerging tokenized lex mercatoria: code supremacy, algorithmic trust, blockchain-based contracting, and the rise of digital and private justice mechanisms such as decentralized arbitration. Together, these features point to a novel synthesis of commercial custom and technological design, in which legal norms are increasingly embedded in code and tokens serve as instruments of both value and regulation. The conclusion critically assesses the promises and limits of this new digital law merchant. While tokenization enhances efficiency and transparency, it also perpetuates the ideology of technological supremacy, often at the expense of human judgment and contractual fairness. Keywords: distributed ledger technologies, Blockchain, lex mercatoria, trade law, smart contracts, arbitration.