Gibraltar Stock Exchange Launches Listings of Blockchain-Based Securities

The Gibraltar Stock Exchange (GSX) is launching listings of blockchain-powered securities on its practical listing venue GSX Global Market, the firm announced on April 9.

Today, the GSX starts listing a number of new products known as digital, smart or tokenized securities such as corporate bonds, convertible bonds, asset-backed securities, derivative securities, open-ended funds and closed-ended funds, the announcement says.

By applying distributed ledger technology (DLT), the GSX intends to enable greater liquidity pools and facilitate democratizing the capital markets, the firm noted in the press release.

In contrast to the GSX Main Market, GSX Global Market provides a lighter reporting scheme and disclosure framework, which will purportedly enable issuers with reduced timelines and listing costs.

As a recognized stock exchange regulated in the European Economic Area (EEA), GSX Global Market does not require debt issuers with securities listed on the market to withhold tax on coupons under British law, as the press release notes.

The new listings come on the heels of the partnership of an integrated tokenized securities exchange product by GSX Group’s subsidiary Hashtacs and STO Global-X on April 5. The project enables stock exchanges and other qualified financial institutions to tokenize assets and boost the trading, clearing and settling of digital securities.

In March 2019, the GSX successfully deployed a GSX Digital Stock Exchange Prototype on the Securities Trading Asset Classification Settlement (STACS) blockchain, and issued a demo bond on its basis. Developed along with Singapore-based blockchain firm Hashstacs, the STACS-enabled project enables listings of digital representations of funds and debts on blockchain.