SIX, the owners of Spanish stock exchange BME, has invested in Spanish real estate tokenization platform OpenBrick. It considers the investment as a complement to the SIX Digital Exchange (SDX).
OpenBrick was founded by real estate firm Grupo Lar, asset manager Renta 4 Banco and blockchain development firm ioBuilders. Alongside SIX, the startup is adding strategic partners such as lawyers Garrigues and infrastructure funding firm Teras Capital.
As part of the announcement regarding OpenBrick, the BME revealed plans for its central securities depository (CSD) subsidiary, Iberclear, to get a license to operate a DLT trading and settlement platform (DLT TSS) under the EU’s DLT Pilot Regime in 2025. Hence, Iberclear will become the platform operator for the DLT transactions executed by OpenBrick. It won’t be the first CSD in the DLT Pilot Regime – the very first approval was for Prague CSD, although that was only for settlement, not trading.
Iberclear DLT on Hedera?
Given OpenBrick operates on Hedera, that implies the Iberclear DLT platform will be based on Hedera. The BME confirmed this to Ledger Insights via email, with a spokesperson saying “Iberclear TSS will operate on the Hedera DLT; however the technology has been designed to be multichain, with the potential to integrate other blockchains, thanks to its smart contracts being compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).”
OpenBrick plans to support the tokenization of a wide range of real estate projects, including residential, accommodation, offices, commercial, logistics and others. Besides providing primary issuance it also plans secondary trading via the Iberclear infrastructure. OpenBrick aims to become a non bank financial channel for developers and operators to raise funds.
“This investment is part of SIX’ commitment to play a leading role in the future of financial markets by entering new assets and exploring the options of innovative technologies such as DLT,” said Javier Hernani, Head Securities Services and Member of the Executive Board of SIX.
“In this case, applied to the real estate sector, which is traditionally highly valued by investors in Spain. This initiative reinforces SIX’s digital assets strategy and is complementary to SDX, the world’s first fully regulated digital securities exchange and central securities depository (CSD).”
OpenBrick co-founder ioBuilders has some history with BME as a client. For example, they worked together on an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) blockchain-based bond issuance. Another co-founder, Renta 4 Banco, has also engaged regularly with DLT. It was the first to adopt BME blockchain-based collateral pledges. And it has partnered Allfunds Blockchain for fund tokenization.
Update: Added response from BME/Iberclear re Hedera DLT
