David Canellis

<div id="highlights-block_629694b14c8b7" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The Monetary Authority of Singapore is partnering with JPMorgan Chase to lead a pilot program exploring DeFi&#8217;s potential</li>
 <li>Binance, Bybit and Crypto.com have all initiated moves into Dubai</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The central bank of Singapore is tapping JPMorgan Chase to help lead a new blockchain pilot exploring the potential of DeFi.



The upcoming tests are part of the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Project Guardian initiative, which launched Tuesday.



Project Guardian aims to gauge whether DeFi (decentralized finance) applications running on public blockchains, including Ethereum, can improve wholesale borrowing and lending processes without introducing additional, undue risk. The first step: tokenizing bonds and deposits, with smart contracts powering trade executions.&nbsp;



MAS also enlisted Singaporean multinational bank DBS – one of Asia’s largest financial institutions – alongside local digital asset issuance venture Marketnode to co-lead the program.



Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat revealed the pilot at the launch of tech event Asia Tech x Singapore Summit on Tuesday. Heng, who also serves as coordinating minister for economic policies, urged retail investors to steer clear of cryptocurrencies — despite the government’s DeFi foray.



According to <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/tech/tech-news/retail-investors-should-steer-clear-of-cryptocurrencies-singapore-to-approach-tech-with-open-mind-dpm-heng" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Straits Times</a>, Heng said Singapore must “pierce through both the hubris and the veil of suspicion” surrounding digital assets to fully grasp the “potentially transformative underlying technologies.” In other words: “blockchain, not bitcoin.”



The project intends to focus on digital securities, or blockchain-powered tokens backed by traditional financial instruments. Singapore’s central bank, which doubles as the nation’s regulatory authority on finance, will leverage the pilot’s results to inform its crypto policymaking.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Crypto bigwigs already left Singapore for Dubai</h3>



While initial indications are that MAS is open to using public (permissionless) blockchains throughout Project Guardian, the tokenized bonds and deposits will be deployed to a private (permissioned) liquidity pool for the purposes of the pilot. There’s potential for digital securities trade on local regulated online exchanges at some point down the line.



Project Guardian diverges from a similar – already live – DeFi initiative managed directly by JPMorgan.&nbsp;



MAS wants to explore permissionless systems; JPMorgan’s Onyx Digital Assets platform is powered by a private blockchain that facilitates the tokenization and trading of US Treasurys within intraday repurchase, or repo, markets — which are employed by hedge funds and other asset managers looking to borrow money at reasonable rates to fund big-ticket orders.&nbsp;



Blockworks <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/french-banking-giant-bnp-paribas-joins-jpmorgans-onyx-blockchain/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a> last week that French bank BNP Paribas had joined Onyx, which has so far processed more than $300 billion of digital tokens representing US Treasurys since its December 2020 launch.



In any case, it’s not clear whether the potential for regulatory clarity via Project Guardian will be enough to entice a selection of crypto’s biggest names back to Singapore.&nbsp;



Increased regulatory scrutiny and long wait times for crypto exchanges applying for licenses had clouded hopes for Singapore to become a global hub for digital assets, with the localized arm of the global exchange Binance <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertolsen/2021/12/13/crypto-giant-binance-shuts-down-singapore-trading-platform/?sh=7351e75f682f" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">shutting down</a> last December.&nbsp;



Binance’s Singapore affiliate supported the trading of just eight cryptocurrencies at the time, a fraction of the 100 digital assets on Binance’s US platform, plus 600-odd tokens on its flagship exchange.



By March, Binance <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/binance-granted-license-to-operate-in-dubai/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">secured</a> regulatory approval to begin operating in Dubai and quickly began looking to hire 100 new staffers in the region. Founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-19/binance-chief-zhao-buys-his-first-home-in-pro-crypto-dubai" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">bought</a> property in Dubai in the months prior.



Crypto derivatives platform Bybit relocated its headquarters from Singapore to Dubai in April. Singapore-based exchange Crypto.com likewise recently <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/uae-crypto-push-sees-bybit-cryptocom-announce-dubai-offices-2022-03-28/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">signaled</a> the company plans to open its first Dubai outpost.



Longtime crypto hedge fund firm Three Arrows Capital in April also pledged to move its headquarters from Singapore to Dubai. Co-founder Su Zhu <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/04/28/three-arrows-capital-to-move-headquarters-to-dubai-raise-external-capital/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cited</a> “electric energy” in Dubai’s digital asset industry at the time.



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Singapore Central Bank Ready To Try DeFi After Crypto Giants Leave for Dubai

Sam Reynolds

<div id="highlights-block_613f7966b0f7e" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>DBS launched its institutional-focused digital asset exchange at the end of 2020, and wants to dramatically increase the number of clients trading on the platform by its first anniversary</li>
 <li>Recently the bank got approval from regulators in Singapore to offer its digital exchange products via its traditional Vickers securities brokerage </li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Executives at Singapore’s DBS digital exchange have plans to dramatically increase the number of clients trading on the platform, as institutional interest in digital assets continues to build.&nbsp;



DBS’ Digital Exchange currently offers bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ethereum and XRP as its digital assets and allows for traders to denominate their pairs in USD, Singapore dollars, Hong Kong dollars, or Japanese yen.&nbsp;



Speaking with Reuters, Eng-Kwok Seat Moey, head of capital markets at DBS, said that the exchange is growing very rapidly.&nbsp;



&#8220;Investors are gradually exploring cryptocurrencies and digital assets,” she said to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/dbs-digital-idUSKBN2G90JQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Reuters</a>. 



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/singapores-dbs-reports-100-million-in-digital-assets-in-custody/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Currently</a> the bank has around 400 customers that push approximately $133 million in volume through the exchange. Its plan is to grow this number to 1,000 by year-end.  



Kwee Juan Han, DBS’ group head of strategy and planning, added that the bank’s goal with the exchange “was to create a platform that could serve the entire digital asset value chain, from deal origination to tokenization, listing, trading, and custody – all within a trusted and regulated bank franchise.”&nbsp;



The bank said it plans to begin listing Security Token Offerings more frequently, with exchange executives targeting a half-dozen listings by the end of 2022. DBS launched its first STO in June, with hopes that it would revive an asset class that has remained<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/can-dbs-sto-revive-a-stagnant-offering-class/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> largely stagnant</a> since they first emerged as an alternative to ICOs in early 2018.   



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Digital assets meet an analogue corporate culture</h3>



But in order to grow the bank’s digital asset business, the bank needs to address some structural challenges head on. In an earlier <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/can-dbs-sto-revive-a-stagnant-offering-class/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">interview with Blockworks</a>, Alessio Quaglini, CEO of Hong Kong based Hex Trust, a digital assets custodian, said he hasn’t seen much interest around STOs because of their required regulatory framework. 



While digital assets are intriguing to many investors because of their portability and efficiency of transfer, Quaglini explained that STO tokens would generally need to stay in their own central securities depository (CSD) in Singapore. The CSD needs to track ownership of the security; liquidity would be limited because it has to stay on the exchange (until protocols have been otherwise developed to allow for wallet whitelisting).&nbsp;



“With the current completely open blockchain infrastructure, I don’t think you can easily translate the current infrastructure of the securities market,” Quaglini said. “You have to set certain rules, you have to put strong restrictions.”



As far as DBS’ desire to boost overall exchange value, that’s unlikely to happen until the exchange gets competitive with existing crypto exchanges’ round-the-clock mentality. Currently, DBS’ exchange is only open during the Singapore business hours, but that’s something they are working on changing.&nbsp;



“This doesn’t really match the operating model of a bank,” Quaglini said in an earlier interview with <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/hong-kong-and-singapore-take-different-approaches-to-regulating-digital-assets/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Blockworks</a>. “It’s very good to have a bank behind it. It’s very good to have their branding behind it. But I say at this point in the digital asset business this is secondary. People are more interested in the actual quality of services that are offered and the breadth of services.”



DBS’ stock closed the Monday trading day in Singapore at SGD 30.29, down 0.5%.



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DBS Plots 20% to 30% Annual Growth in Digital Currency Exchange Customers

<div id="highlights-block_61155a9708186" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>DBS’ brokerage has received approval ‘in principle’ from Singapore’s financial regulator to offer its clients digital assets and tokens </li>
 <li>This would mean that the bank can offer its digital products from its digital asset exchange to its traditional brokerage clients </li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Institutional and high-net worth clients of Singapore’s <a href="https://www.dbsvonline.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DBS Vickers</a> brokerage, owned by DBS Bank, could soon be trading digital assets and tokens from the bank’s digital exchange, as DBS Vickers recently received approval “in principle” from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. 



Singapore licenses digital asset infrastructure providers under the “Payments Act”, which was modified in 2019 to include cryptocurrency service providers. When the approval is finalized, clients of DBS Vickers, a traditional financial brokerage, will be able to access the digital exchange’s products.&nbsp;



“We are pleased to have made steady progress on our digital asset ecosystem in the six months since we launched the DDEx last year, and this shows in our trading and custody activity,” Eng-Kwok Seat Moey, group head of capital markets at DBS, said in a statement. “This bodes well for our ability to provide integrated solutions across the digital asset value chain notably in the form of STOs, leveraging DBS’ expertise in deal origination to tokenization, listing, distribution, trading and custody. This will contribute to Singapore’s ambitions to be a digital asset hub in Asia.”



DBS also recently announced that it would be extending the trading hours for its digital asset exchange beyond the Asian workday.



Earlier this month during its earnings call DBS announced that its digital asset trading desk had closed over $100 million in revenue during its most recent quarter. Currently the bank has 400 clients trading on its platform and it says its targeting 1,000 next quarter.&nbsp;



DBS didn’t provide a timeline to when it expects approval.&nbsp;



The bank’s stock closed the Singapore Thursday trading day at SG $31 ($22.84).  



Want more investor-focused content on digital assets? <a target="_blank" href="https://cms.blockworks.co/events/digital-asset-summit-2021-2/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Join us</a> September 13th and 14th for the Digital Asset Summit (DAS) in NYC. Use code ARTICLE for $75 off your ticket. <a target="_blank" href="https://cms.blockworks.co/events/digital-asset-summit-2021-2/" rel="noreferrer noopener">Buy it now</a>.

DBS Bank’s Brokerage to Offer Digital Tokens

<div id="highlights-block_610c17dbe301a" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>DBS said its digital assets exchange has just under 400 customers </li>
 <li>These customers did $133 million worth of transactions during the quarter</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



During a briefing call with analysts, DBS CEO Piyush Gupta said he was “quite pleased” with the progress the exchange had made since it first launched in December 2020. Gupta said that the exchange’s goal was to hit 1,000 customers from the “tad under 400” it currently has. These approximately 400 institutional clients (the exchange isn’t open to retail investors) did around $133 million in transactions during the quarter.



The exchange offers trading for bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash and XRP in multiple regional currency pairs, as well as digitized stocks and bonds.



In June, DBS said that it would offer a bond in the form of a <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/can-dbs-sto-revive-a-stagnant-offering-class/">Security Token Offering</a> but its not clear as to the progress it has made with this project. At the time, experts Blockworks spoke to said they haven’t “seen much interest” in the offering and<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/why-security-token-offerings-are-a-big-yawn-in-parts-of-asia"> prior endeavours to offer STOs</a> haven’t generated much excitement in Asia.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Gupta also mentioned that he expects the volume to pick up once the exchange extends its trading hours past the Singapore business day.&nbsp;



“A large part of this activity actually happens outside the Asian time zone,” he said.&nbsp;



Overall, Gupta said that DBS recorded a 37% jump in quarterly net profit to $1.26 billion, compared to the same time last year as Singapore’s economy re-opens. While the Delta variant continues to be a concern, Gupta pointed out that the hospitalization rate in Singapore continues to be low and the recovery rate high. 



Overall, the bank’s new business segment, which includes the digital exchange, expansion into rural banking in China and India, as well as growth-stage debt financing platform EvolutionX brought in $350 million in revenue.



Gupta said that these new initiatives were an important focus for the bank in order to find new sources of revenue in an era of prolonged low interest rates.&nbsp;



Curiously, during the bank’s quarterly update for the media there wasn’t much of a focus on the digital exchange, however, and it only got a passing mention until the analyst briefing later. A DBS spokesperson didn’t return a request for comment on why this was by press time.&nbsp;



DBS’ stock is currently trading for SGD 30.80 ($22.20) in Singapore. It’s up nearly 18% since the start of the year.&nbsp; &nbsp;

Singapore’s DBS Reports $100 Million in Digital Assets in Custody

<div id="highlights-block_60b686296045d" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>DBS’ digital bond offering is a first for the bank’s digital exchange and comes after the private-equity backed bond Astrea VI on Singapore’s iSTOX digital asset exchange </li>
 <li>But the head of Hex Trust, a Hong Kong based custodian, says institutional interest in these products just isn’t there yet</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Singapore’s DBS Bank, one of Southeast Asia’s largest financial institutions, plans to offer a digital bond in the form of a security token offering (STO) on its recently launched digital assets exchange. 



“While most bond tokenisation exercises announced in Asia to date tend to be repackaged forms of a conventional bond issue, the current transaction directly combines existing legal and tax infrastructure requirements with a direct issuance on the digital exchange in smaller lot sizes,” Clifford Lee, DBS’ head of Fixed Income, said in a statement.



Compared to traditional bond offerings by the bank or other corporations, ownership can be had for a fraction of the price as incumbents. According to a company press release, the STO is available in blocks of SGD $10,000 (roughly $7,560) compared to the usual SGD 250,000 blocks of previous offerings. But despite the potential appeal of these digitized bonds that are more accessible and efficient than before, questions remain as to if investor interest is there. 



“The issue isn’t technology. People have been able to tokenize assets for two years,” Alessio Quaglini, CEO of Hong Kong based Hex Trust, a digital assets custodian, told Blockworks in an interview. “The problem here is about the regulatory framework and how you can translate the regulatory frameworks to a new type of technology.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The STO phenomenon&nbsp;</h3>



In a <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/dbs-digital-assets-business-building-steadily/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">recent earnings call</a>, DBS bank said that their digital assets business had been building “steadily” with over 120 accredited investors onboarded. 



<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/why-security-token-offerings-are-a-big-yawn-in-parts-of-asia" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">STOs aren’t exactly a new phenomenon</a> and it remains to be seen if DBS, with its digital assets push and regional might, can excite a market where interest has struggled to materialize. 



While Singapore is in constant contest with Hong Kong for the crown of Asia’s financial city, neither can claim that they were the first to create a legal framework for STOs. <a href="https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2019/06/28/2003717700" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">That goes to Taiwan</a>, which was followed closely by Thailand. But despite the legal framework getting the green light almost a year-and-a-half ago, <a href="https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2077219/developers-among-the-first-to-proffer-initial-coin-offerings" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Thailand is only now seeing its first STO</a> hit the market — <a href="https://forkast.news/thailands-crypto-cold-season-makes-for-a-land-of-frowns/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">and some stakeholders say the market</a> is more frowns than smiles.



A single STO has yet to launch in Taiwan as existing crowdfunding laws have a more market friendly framework.



None of this should hold true for Singapore, in theory. Neither Taiwan nor Thailand are serious financial hubs and now STOs have the weight of DBS Bank behind them.



Quaglini said that Hex Trust “hasn’t seen much interest” in custodying security tokens or tokenized traditional commodities as the majority of interest from institutional investors was in bitcoin, ethereum and a number of other popular utility tokens.&nbsp;



“We are seeing more advanced progress than before, such as the announcements we’ve been seeing from DBS&#8230;and announcements we’ve seen [such as] large law firms like DLA Piper entering the space in that direction,” he said.&nbsp;&nbsp;



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Going mainstream&nbsp;</h3>



The problem, Quaglini explains, is that the STOs, by their regulatory nature, are too centralized and geographically blocked off. Unlike other types of tokens, STO tokens would generally need to stay in their own central securities depository (CSD) in Singapore — in this case DBS’ digital exchange.&nbsp;



It could be argued that this is antithetical to the very idea of blockchain technology which enables things like stablecoin transfers to be shot around the world in seconds compared to the days it would take a SWIFT transfer to go through. It doesn’t also work well with the whole proposition of DBS itself, which became a giant on being a regional bank for Southeast Asia, not just siloed to Singapore.



This problem exists because the CSD needs to be able to track the security; it can’t be left to vanish into the ether so to speak. The chain of ownership needs to be tracked, for a litany of reasons, like registering capital gains and tax reporting.&nbsp;



“With the current completely open blockchain infrastructure, I don&#8217;t think you can easily translate the current infrastructure of the securities market,” Quaglini said. “You have to set certain rules, you have to put strong restrictions.”



This has led to the development of things like the <a href="https://polymath.network/erc-1400" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ERC 1400 Security Token Standard</a> for Ethereum to allow for regulatory compliance through things like wallet whitelisting. ERC 1400 is still a work in progress, <a href="https://tokenist.com/ethereum-community-developing-new-token-standard-to-increase-security-token-credibility/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to reports</a>, and is currently an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) subtype that’s being reviewed by the community for future possible implementation.   



All of this isn’t an argument for <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/ethereum-steps-up-as-rails-for-new-capital-markets/">permissioned chains</a>, however. Although permissioned chains might make sense in the short term for testing, ultimately public blockchains are what’s required as only they can provide the real time 24/7 settlement layer that the institutional finance industry needs, Quaglini believes.&nbsp;



It’s not that STOs won’t ever take off, however. Melding the decentralized nature of blockchain with securities creates a “lot of uncertainties or complications for regulators and these hurdles have not been completely solved yet,” Quaglini said. But once the infrastructure and framework is set up, “then I’m quite sure we will see exponential growth in this area,” he added.