SHA-256's properties make it an ideal choice for tokenization:

1. *Uniqueness*: SHA-256 generates unique hash values, ensuring that each token is unique.

2. *Irreversibility*: SHA-256's one-way hashing makes it impossible to reverse-engineer the original PAN from the token.

3. *Collision resistance*: SHA-256's collision resistance ensures that different PANs will not produce the same token.

4. *Deterministic*: SHA-256 always generates the same hash value for a given input, ensuring consistency.

5. *Fixed output size*: SHA-256 generates a fixed-size hash value (256 bits), making it efficient for storage and processing.

6. *High entropy*: SHA-256 produces a high-entropy output, making it difficult to predict or guess the token.

These properties ensure that SHA-256-based tokenization is secure, efficient, and reliable, making it an industry-standard choice for protecting sensitive payment card data.