A digital asset is anything that is stored digitally and is uniquely identifiable and that organizations can use to obtain value. Examples of digital assets include documents, audio, videos, logos, slideshows, spreadsheets, and websites. Explore key data and analytics trends. The Gartner glossary defines digital assets as digital material owned by a company or individual, including text, graphics, audio, video and animations.
Traditionally, people have considered that digital assets only include photos and videos. However, over the years, we have started to include other digital files in our definition, such as documents, presentations and spreadsheets. A digital asset is anything that exists only in digital form and comes with a different right of use or a different permission to use. Data that does not have those rights is not considered assets. A digital asset is any asset that exists in digital form and includes a right to use.
Some of the most popular examples are digital assets related to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. These include cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and virtual real estate in the metaverse. A simple definition of a digital asset is that it is a collection of binary data that is autonomous, uniquely identifiable. and it has a value.
To break this down a little further, binary data differentiates the asset because it is digital (that is, kept in a computer system and composed of numerical values that are zero or one). A digital asset must be uniquely identifiable; otherwise, it's not possible to transact with it. The word “asset” implies that the entity has a value. How much, for whom and how that is expressed are separate considerations, the point being that all digital assets have value.
Technically speaking, digital assets are any electronic record that you own, license, or control. This includes just about any online account or digital file you're authorized to access: email, online bank account, social media accounts, cloud storage, digital photos, and just about anything else you access online, on your phone or computer that requires you to sign in. Digital files can include documents, photos, music, playlists, videos, e-books, and contact lists, while software can include financial, legal and tax software. Decentralized digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs, use blockchain technology to operate without a central authority.
At work, you used cryptocurrency to buy sales data to analyze a specific market and you sent a digital presentation with your findings to your boss, who forwarded it to management. Anything that was in digital format was converted into something that could be used to create value through tokenization on a blockchain. Those who have capital to invest in long-term initiatives are gradually identifying the needs of chief operating officers for predictable, reliable and efficient digital asset supply chains. The general concept of digital assets is quite understandable, but there are many different categories of assets that qualify, and those that are considered investments tend to be more complex.
MediaValet is a leader in cloud-based digital asset management that helps organizations manage, organize and share their digital assets, improving productivity and increasing ROI. In the past, digital assets, such as scanned data or documents, belonged to organizations and used them to obtain value. The term “digital asset” is now in widespread use; however, there is no universal definition that applies to the different contexts in which it will be used. Digital assets have become important enough that digital asset management (DAM) service providers have emerged. A token that represents ownership of a unique digital object (think of a work of art, a government identification, or a specific production unit).
Going back to the example of a photo you take, you could create an NFT with that photo, which would be a digital record showing that you are the owner of the photo. By having a general definition of digital assets that serves as a basis for all the different types that can be found, it is easier to manage them and identify correlations that could provide information on cost savings and, potentially, income generation. This encompasses any device that currently exists or will exist as technology advances to adapt to the conception of new modalities capable of transporting digital assets.
