Today, Boerse Stuttgart and Japan’s SBI Group announced a collaboration to develop a blockchain-based digital asset ecosystem in Europe and Asia. The Börse Stuttgart stock exchange owned by the group is the second-largest in Germany.
Under the partnership, SBI will invest an undisclosed amount in the Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange and plans to invest in Boerse Stuttgart Digital Ventures. Both these subsidiaries of Boerse Stuttgart are engaged in digital asset-related businesses.
Boerse Stuttgart Digital Exchange (BSDEX) is a joint venture of Boerse Stuttgart, Axel Springer and finanzen.net. BSDEX is regulated digital asset exchange which complies with the German Banking Act. Meanwhile, Boerse Stuttgart Digital Ventures is leading the digitization strategy of the group. It has investments in firms developing cryptocurrency and digital assets custodian services (blocknox).
“The SBI Group, including its crypto-asset trading platform and other related business operating companies, will fully make use of the collaboration with Boerse Stuttgart Group, to well-establish the actual demands of the digital asset throughout the world,” said Yoshitaka Kitao, President and Representative Director of SBI Holdings.
SBI Group is one of the founding members of the Japan Security Token Offering Association, which is working on developing self-regulation standards around security token issuance. The alliance includes other major Japanese firms such as Nomura Securities and Daiwa Securities. SBI also invested in tokenization company Securitize amongst many other cryptocurrency and blockchain investments.
The Japanese firm has a joint venture with Ripple, SBI Ripple Asia, and last month SBI Remit launched a blockchain remittance service between Japan and Vietnam.
“With the SBI Group, we have found an ideal partner to push forward our vision of a highly efficient, global ecosystem along the value chain of digital assets,” said Alexander Höptner, Chairman of the Management Board of Boerse Stuttgart. “Besides the exchange of knowledge and technology, possible fields of collaboration include the cross issuance and listing of digital assets, trading and brokerage as well as the creation of the first global custody bridge.”
However, Deutsche Börse is another player in Germany with experience in digital assets and had a collaboration with Swisscom and Sygnum. The alliance had plans for a digital asset exchange, but Swisscom has teamed up with SIX which has its own digital exchange SDX. Instead, the Deutsche Börse plans to focus on digital asset opportunities in Germany.
