21X Announces Strategic Partnership with SBI Digital Markets

21X — a distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based market infrastructure for tokenized securities, which has applied for a license to operate a DLT trading and settlement system (DLT TSS) under the European Union’s DLT regime (DLTR) — has announced a ground-breaking strategic partnership with SBI Digital Markets (SBIDM), based in Singapore and a subsidiary of Japan’s largest online financial services group, SBI Holdings.

Under the terms of the collaboration, SBIDM will list tokenized securities on 21X’s DLT market, which provides a matching, trading and settlement system on a public permission-less blockchain. 21X is expected to be the first fully regulated DLT market operator under EU DLTR, making this collaboration a milestone moment — the first time that tokenized securities can be traded on an exchange under the regulations of the EU’s European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).

Within the strategic partnership SBIDM is acting as a listing agent and service provider for asset tokenization and custody of tokenized securities, admitted to primary and/or secondary markets on 21X. SBIDM and 21X are planning to issue, distribute and trade a suite of tokenized securities on 21X, with an initial focus on exchange-traded notes (ETNs) and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

This compelling partnership will open distribution corridors for SBIDM investors from APAC regions — including Singapore, Thailand, and Japan — into Europe, and vice versa.

Announcing this landmark agreement, Max Heinzle, founder and CEO of 21X, stated: “For over a decade SBI has been both an innovator and early mover in the burgeoning digital asset space. Our strategic partnership with SBIDM marks a significant point in the development of 21X and the globalization of blockchain-leveraging capital markets. With our license to operate imminent, this collaboration will allow SBIDM, which holds an outstanding market position in Asia, to use 21X as the gateway to Europe for trading and settlement of digital securities, taking advantage of the first and only fully regulated exchange in Europe for tokenized securities, at launch.”

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