Germany legalizes digitized securities

Published at: Dec. 16, 2020

The German word for securities is wertpapieren, or "papers of worth," which may soon be as outdated as nocturnal traders saying they're burning the midnight oil.

Per a Reuters report from Wednesday, Merkel's cabinet had passed a new law that will end the requirement to have a paper certificate for sale of a security, overtly looking to advance blockchain trading within the country.

German Finance Minister Olaf Scholtz reportedly said, “The paper certificate may be dear to some for nostalgic reasons, but the future belongs to its electronic version.” The Finance Ministry called the shift to all-electronic securities a component of its broader blockchain strategy.

While the German Finance Ministry and BaFin, its financial watchdog, are some of the most assertive in Europe, the country is at the forefront of security token adoption among major economies. Börse Stuttgart is known to be working on integrating security tokens, while BaFin has been supportive of platforms like Black Manta

Tags
Sto
Related Posts
German Security Token Platform to Develop a Custody Solution
German security token offering (STO) platform Black Manta Capital Partners partnered with local digital asset custody firm Finoa to develop institutional security token custody. According to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on May 4, the cooperation aims to develop a regulated security token custody solution explicitly aimed at institutional investors, high net worth individuals and corporations. Black Manta and Finoa will first collaborate on securing the tokens of the Berlin STO that has tokenized $12 million worth of real estate announced last month. Per the announcement, Finoa is a Berlin-based digital asset custodian that holds a crypto custody license issued …
Regulation / May 4, 2020
German Financial Regulator Further Clarifies Crypto Status With New Paper
The German financial watchdog (BaFin) issued a new summary leaflet detailing how cryptocurrencies are treated under newly enacted laws for 2020. The instructions are presented as BaFin’s interpretation of the new German legislature. The March 2 leaflet “specifies the new regulatory standards” that businesses will need to adhere to should they wish to provide crypto custody services. This is understood as a generic term to include all businesses that hold crypto for clients, including exchanges, financial services or banks. The new crypto regulation introduced on Jan. 1, 2020 was part of a wider initiative to align German law with the …
Regulation / March 3, 2020
German BaFin official calls for ‘innovative’ EU-wide DeFi regulation
Birgit Rodolphe, executive director at Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), has called for innovative and uniform regulation of the decentralized finance (DeFi) space throughout the European Union. BaFin is Germany’s financial regulatory body responsible for regulating banks, insurance firms and financial institutions including cryptocurrency companies. BaFin is the issuer of “crypto custody licenses,” a permit required for firms wanting to offer cryptocurrency services within Germany. In an article on BaFin’s website, Rodolphe warned of the risks to consumers of the unregulated DeFi space and called for standardized regulatory considerations across EU member countries: “One thing is clear: the clock …
Decentralization / May 18, 2022
What the SEC can learn from the German regulator
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s chairperson Gary Gensler announced this month that the crypto industry should not escape the purview of the regulator. He highlighted that decentralized finance (DeFi) trading and lending protocols need particular attention when it comes to investor protections. Regulation can extend into a menu of options that covers custody, reporting, counterparty verification and asset classification and issuance. Reports are surfacing that people are waiting with bated breath on how the SEC will regulate the DeFi industry, but Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, also known as BaFin, has found a way to apply existing securities …
Technology / Aug. 12, 2021
Deutsche Borse’s platform Xetra to list its first Ether ETPs
Deutsche Borse’s electronic trading platform, Xetra, is preparing to launch its first Ether (ETH)-based exchange-traded products, or ETPs. According to data from Xetra, the platform is set to debut trading of two Ether ETPs — ETC Group’s Ether exchange-traded commodity, or ETC, product (ZETH) and 21Shares’ Ethereum ETP (AETH) — on Tuesday. A spokesperson for Deutsche Borse told Cointelegraph that the two products will be the first Ether ETPs to ever be listed on Xetra. Alongside AETH, Xetra will be also listing 21Shares’ Bitcoin Cash (BCH) ETP, the firm’s global head of ETP, Laurent Kssis, told Cointelegraph. “As of tomorrow …
Ethereum / March 8, 2021