Today the SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) announced that fintech accelerator F10 issued tokenized private stock held in SDX’s regulated central security depositary (CSD), which uses blockchain. While SDX is responsible for the token issuance, startup Aequitec provided share registry and cap table services.
F10’s CFO Jonathan Seiler observed “clear advantages of managing our share registry and all related processes fully digitally.” SDX sees those benefits as efficiency and improved liquidity for private markets.
SDX first announced it was working with Aequitec in March. It’s also working with another startup daura which tokenizes private stocks. In that relationship, the tokenized stock can be issued into SDX’s CSD and use SDX as a secondary market.
Since before its launch, SDX stated its roadmap was a marathon rather than a sprint. Hence has announced a broad array of activities this year. The platform went live in November with the issuance of a SIX bond. This involved onboarding three banks, Credit Suisse, UBS Investment Bank, and Zürcher Kantonalbank.
Late last year, it was also involved in wholesale CBDC trials with the Swiss National Bank, which included Swiss Banks as well as Citi and Goldman Sachs. Because the CBDC is not live, SIX tokenizes swiss francs for wholesale CBDC applications, and a German subsidiary is working on doing the same for digital euros.
This year SDX partnered with another startup FQX, to enable promissory notes to be traded as digital assets. And it unveiled its web3 cryptocurrency initiative involving custody and staking.
