Switzerland’s two regulated crypto banks, Sygnum and SEBA, chose to mark the occasion by issuing tokenized securities. Announced today, Sygnum tokenized a range of premium investible wines from Fine Wine Capital AG.
Meanwhile, SEBA is issuing its Series B equity shares as Ethereum ERC-20 tokens. The move will allow for “seamless connectivity for trading and liquidity on future internationally recognized digital liquidity venues,” the firm said in a press statement.
Speaking about the new legal wrapper for tokenized assets, Matthew Alexander, head of digital corporate finance and asset tokenization at SEBA Bank, said:
“It’s a genuine blockchain-based digital twin of a traditional security. Switzerland’s strategy is to provide a bridge into this new digital economy and the transition from traditional fiat ways of banking and security assurance.”
SDX skates on
Alexander said any issuer in Switzerland could take advantage of the new laws. That includes Swiss banking major UBS, for example, which issues its primary securities on SIX, the country’s national stock exchange.
Presumably, the DLT law will fuel the fire under the SIX digital exchange, SDX, to get its services up and running and ready to cater to this emerging market.
“So SDX, the digital twin of the Swiss stock exchange, is still under construction and has been for a long time,” said SEBA’s Alexander. “But it will then host these digital twins and that whole transition is coming.”
Still, SDX could be missing a trick if it doesn’t get its skates on. Both Sygnum and SEBA have ties to Singapore and will operate as market makers on DBS Bank’s new digital exchange, which is now up and running.
MLL’s Vogel agreed Switzerland’s new DLT legal underpinnings would look attractive in Singapore too.
“It will definitely give more legal certainty,” Vogel said. “So even though it’s traded in a foreign jurisdiction, you would still look at the underlying right for investors to have the confidence to invest in that asset.”
Originally published by
Ian Aliison | February 1, 2021
Coindesk
