Germany’s 2nd Largest Stock Exchange to Launch ICO Platform, Multilateral Crypto Trading

Germany’s second largest stock exchange, the Stuttgart Börse, has revealed plans to develop a new platform for Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) as well as a multilateral crypto trading venue, Finextra reported August 2.

The German bourse, which had a trading volume of EUR 81 billion (about $95 billion) across all asset classes in 2017, had already this May unveiled a prototype of its zero-fee crypto trading app for the public, dubbed “Bison,” slated to be released in September.

Now the bourse is setting its sights on the primary and secondary markets by developing both an ICO platform and a multilateral, regulated crypto trading venue.

The primary ICO platform will facilitate digital token issuance, corporate financing, and the representation of rights and assets, with the bourse aiming to boost their chances of success by making them tradable on its secondary venue.

According to Finextra, Alexander Höptner, CEO at Börse Stuttgart, said that the move to develop crypto trading platform is a response to “demand from both retail and institutional investors for a regulated and reliable environment for trading with cryptocurrencies,” noting,

"At the trading venue tokens issued via our ICO platform can be traded on the secondary market. This is an important success factor for ICOs.”

Höptner added that the bourse aims to provide “central services along the value chain for digital assets, all under one roof," and is therefore developing a full service infrastructure that will include safe custody solutions for both emerging digital assets and established cryptos such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

Bison is being developed by local data analytics startup Sowa Labs, which the bourse acquired back in Dec. 2017 as part of its roadmap to fulfil an ambitious “digital strategy.”

Beyond cryptocurrencies, international stock exchanges are looking to integrate the underlying blockchain technology to increase the efficiency and security of their operations.

Cointelegraph recently reported on a detailed analysis into the global implementation of blockchain for stock transactions to date that was undertaken by South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). On the basis of its findings, the FSS called on local regulatory agencies and companies to work towards developing an integrated blockchain system to innovate domestic stock markets.