Deutsche Börse planned platform seeks to make tokenized assets fungible

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After rolling out its digital asset trading platform, German-based stock exchange Deutsche Börse has signaled an intention to proceed with an institutional-facing solution.

Dubbed the Digital Assets Business Platform, the proposal will see the exchange attempt to make digital currencies fungible for its institutional clients, expanding the range of tradable assets.

The plans for the solution were included in Deutsche Börse’s annual report published in mid-March, although the document did not include the details surrounding the offering. However, a company spokesperson revealed that the platform would offer clients digital currency brokerage and custodial services.

Deutsche Börse said the cloud-based service will strictly comply with traditional finance
standards to encourage institutional adoption of the solution. Furthermore, there are plans to include a multilateral trading facility in the offering, but the report remains coy on tokenizing shares.

“We are planning to build an ecosystem for digital assets that is operated on the basis of an institutional value chain, using native digital infrastructure components in the cloud,” read the report.

“The platform would conform to recognized standards in the finance industry and service a variety of asset classes and use cases on and off the blockchain,” Deutsche Börse added.

Deutsche Börse has been increasing its reach in digital assets, accentuated by its recent launch of a virtual currency trading platform dubbed DBDX. The spot trading platform, just like the proposed Digital Assets Business Platform, operates as a regulated institutional offering with the exchange proceeding on a Request-for-quote basis.

Deutsche Börse famously rolled out D7 to operate as a tokenization and securities depository offering in its attempts to cover all the bases. Experts say that D7 will be distinguished from the incoming digital asset offering in several ways, including focusing on general tokenization rather than D7’s native digital securities issuance.

Addressing industry pain points

In 2023, Deutsche Börse justified its foray into Web3 as an attempt to adopt a proactive
stance for “an evolving new ecosystem.” The stock exchange giant disclosed that institutional-grade offerings have always played second fiddle to retail services in the $3 trillion industry, prompting its range of solutions.

Apart from the new trading platform and D7, a subsidiary of Deutsche Börse has rolled out a trading offering to support digital asset-based non-deliverable forwards (NFDs).

“Our new solution is a game change for digital ecosystems,” said Carlo Kölzer, Head of Digital Assets at Deutsche Borse. “We aim to provide trusted market operations for crypto assets, ensuring transparency, security, and regulatory compliance for institutional clients in Europe.”

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