Although the digital securities industry has not ushered in explosive development in 2020, the scale of asset market value has increased significantly, and the infrastructure and underlying technical structure tend to be improved.
This report was jointly written by Cabin VC, Binance China Blockchain Research Institute, Gibraltar Stock Exchange Group (GSX Group), Hong Kong Digital Asset Exchange (HKBitEX), Ontology, and UPRETS.
The concept of DIGITAL SECURITIES was born out of DIGITAL ASSETS SECURITIES. It is a supplementary optimization based on the meaning of the term after the birth of the term SECURITY TOKEN.
The term “securities” in digital securities refers to the types of assets with securities attributes, not just the securities themselves, but in most contexts used to refer to the types of assets that have been digitized and contain the attributes of securities. Security tokens generally refer to the tokens with securities attributes issued by the issuer. The second half of 2018 will be affected by the peripheral regulatory policies of the industry, and the asset attributes of the concept of digital securities are more indicative than securities tokens. It is clear, has a more profound and appropriate meaning, and has been widely adopted after 2018.
Digital securities are a key construction part of the concept of digital assets. It is the basic industry for digital finance. It is also the industrial component with the highest degree of compliance with traditional financial business paths and the current regulatory system in the development of digital assets at this stage. Therefore, digital securities have Different from the digital currency (Digital Currency) such as Ethereum and Bitcoin created based on blockchain technology. Due to the scale of assets involved, the digitalization of asset digitization technology standards, the business chain and the digitization of regulatory procedures, we believe that digital securities will have a revolutionary impact on the digitization of financial assets and the realization of intelligent supervision in the future.
In 2020, the global new crown epidemic will trigger regional turmoil, and the global economy will experience large-scale shocks. Benefiting from the further clarification of digital asset regulatory policies and the need for risk hedging generated by global monetary easing, financial institutions mainly in the United States continue to increase their holdings of digital assets, and the cryptocurrency market once again ushered in 2017. After another round of up cycle. In this wave, due to the maturity of the upper-layer technology ecosystem such as Ethereum, the trend of global asset digitization is becoming more and more obvious. 2020 is a year of important progress in the formation of the global digital securities industry’s capital system and the construction of primary and secondary market infrastructure. Decentralized financial system (DeFi) tried to connect real assets through digital securities to expand the iconic year of liquidity.
Digital securities with blockchain technology as the bottom layer are gradually building a full-path ecosystem for the digitization of real assets around the world, and use smart contracts as the medium to gradually disrupt the flow of real assets after digitization in the decentralized financial system Sexual disorder.
2020 Macro Data of Digital Securities Industry
Overview of the scale of asset transactions in the digital securities market
The total asset market value of the global digital securities market at the end of 2020 will reach US$366,523,463, an increase of more than 500% from the market value of US$59,339,362.52 at the beginning of the period. The market value growth for the whole year was mostly concentrated in the Q3 and Q4 quarters of 2020. In July, the market value increased by 169.99%, and the highest market value for the year was US$528,612,851 in September, and then gradually dropped to US$374,061,074.
June 2020 is a critical month in the annual development path of the digital securities market. In order to enhance the liquidity of the digital securities trading platform tZero, OverStock will airdrop the digital securities OSTKO in May 2020, through the transfer agent Computershare, Overstock accumulates to its investors Distributed 4.37 million OSTKO shares. Affected by this behavior, tZero’s market share increased by 5.29% month-on-month in June. The market value of OSTKO accounted for 58.98% of the month. The global digital securities secondary market market value exceeded US$100 million for the first time that month. The global digital securities market Investment income exceeded the average performance of all major US indexes during the current period, with an average return rate of 4.38%, (Dow Jones: +1.33%, S&P 500: +1.46%, Nasdaq: +5.30%). The current stage of digital securities industry assets In terms of structure, it is a landmark.
The existing secondary market digital securities asset products can be divided into three categories based on asset attributes and circulation scenarios:
The proportion of digital securities asset products
The composition of global digital securities secondary trading asset products is still dominated by real estate equity, but the proportions of various assets are not much different. As of December 2020, the number of real estate equity digital securities assets accounted for 44%, and the proportions of platform equity and digital funds/stocks were 24% and 32%, respectively.
Market value of digital securities asset products
From the perspective of market capitalization, although real estate equity digital securities dominate the number of assets, their overall market capitalization is only 7.11%. The scale of the platform equity digital securities market accounts for as much as 82%. Although real estate equity digital securities rely on real physical assets, judging from the current transaction scale, asset digitization has not effectively solved the problem of real estate asset liquidity.
Although the market value of the global digital securities market will achieve rapid growth in 2020, it also presents extremely obvious problems such as a single trading platform and an overweight single-category asset market. The unbalanced and inadequate industrial development in 2018 and 2019 has not been completely resolved. The explosive growth in the DeFi field in 2020 has not appeared in the digital securities industry, and the global digital securities industry is still in the early stage of development.
The main assets of digital securities are derived from the digitization of real assets, including the global stock market value of about 105 trillion US dollars, 95 trillion US dollars of bond assets, 9.6 trillion US dollars of real estate assets and art collections, based on the equity market. The digital securities have great potential for application in the global capital market.
Industry Participants and Infrastructure Development Overview
At this stage, the global digital securities market can be basically divided into five types of participants based on the division of labor in the industrial chain: technical infrastructure providers, issuance platforms, secondary trading markets, investment institutions, and financial service providers.
This table is a list of representative companies in the global digital securities market, in no particular order, the list is only for display
Judging from the market share data, the uneven development of the secondary market of the digital securities industry is prominent. tZero has a market share of 76.72% in the global digital securities trading market, and MERJ Exchange ranks second with a market share of 10.37%. The difference between the two is nearly 65%.
In addition to Aspen Coin, some real estate equity digital securities have begun to choose Uniswap for secondary market transactions. In 2020, there are as many as 11 real estate equity digital securities listed on Uniswap, but the market value of digital securities assets traded by Uniswap only accounts for 0.84%. DEX is gradually becoming the listing choice for some digital securities assets, but at this stage, DEX has not put forward an appropriate plan for the compliance requirements for the trading and circulation of digital securities assets.
In 2020, the digital securities track has achieved major breakthroughs in investment and financing from asset issuance, trading, to depository and custody in different business scenarios.
In 2020 alone, the overall financing scale of the industry in Q1 will reach 60 million U.S. dollars. Since 2018, the total investment in the industry has reached 850 million U.S. dollars. There will be 25 investment and financing events in the first three quarters of 2020, and the two largest financings during the period will be 50 million. US dollars were obtained by BlockFi and ComplyAdvantage respectively.
In the meantime, INX. Limited’s acquisition of the US digital securities trading platform Openfinance Securities.LLC is one of the important acquisition events in 2020. INX is a regulated digital securities and cryptocurrency trading platform. Through this acquisition, it will obtain OpenFinance broker-dealer and ATS business licenses, as well as the OpenFinance Network system platform, digital asset list, customer database and related business licenses.
The overall progress of the underlying facilities of asset digitization technology in 2020 will be relatively slow. The technical standards for asset digitization have not yet been unified. At this stage, Digital Securities Issuance (STO) adopts different protocol standards for different assets, and cannot fully take into account the cross-chain needs of assets that may arise in the later period. Lava, a PoC (Proof of Concepts) project established in 2019, adopted Confidential Asset (CA) as a solution for asset issuance and trading on the chain this year. CA has stronger privacy, so it provides better privacy and non-specificity for digital assets after they are on the chain.
In 2020, most of the new participating institutions in the digital securities industry will expand their businesses in the direction of real estate equity assets. The Singapore-licensed institution Sharespost provides an online trading platform for real estate equity assets, Germany’s Max Crowfund provides a crowdfunding platform for real estate equity assets, and Banco BTG Pactual, the largest private investment bank in Latin America, issues real estate on the Tezos blockchain Equity assets ReitBZ.
One of the obstacles to the application of digital securities is the trust gap between on-chain and off-chain. After digital securities assets tried to integrate with the DeFi system, this problem has not been fundamentally solved. Off-chain trust relies on the realization of law and supervision. On-chain trust is supported by contracts and codes. Licensed platform service providers undertake the intermediate custody link. The transfer of asset carriers from “paper contracts” to “smart contracts” is usually realized by centralized institutions. In the transfer of ownership, the existing technical solutions only provide solutions to the imperfect digital technology of traditional securities business.
Existing asset digitization technical standards
The technical protocol standards involved in the digitization of real assets can be divided into two categories: Fungible and Non-Fungible according to the technical form after digitization. The two types of protocols are usually used Dealing with the digitization of standardized assets and non-standardized assets. The digital protocol standard is the first entry in the path of asset digitization. It is in the asset digitization issuance link in the division of labor in the industrial chain. It determines how the underlying system of asset digitization access and circulation in the future is extremely high. The strategic significance of the industry.
Existing asset digitization protocol standards with a wide range of applications are mostly derived from the Ethereum ERC-20 protocol standard, and are mainly developed by asset digitization issuance or trading platforms.
Data source: sharkloo
At the same time, the following asset digitization technology standards are emerging.
Data source: sharkloo
Convergence trend of DeFi and digital securities
DeFi and digital securities join forces to promote financial innovation
DeF (Decentralized Finance) provides decentralized financial services such as banking, insurance, bonds, etc. Users need to lock collateral in smart contracts to participate in DeFi credit, transactions and other financial services. Compared with traditional financial institutions, DeFi has comparative advantages in payment and settlement, accessibility, decentralization and transparency.
Although DeFi’s ecological fluidity is highly plastic, it is sensitive and fragile. The main collateral of the DeFi ecosystem is BTC, ETH and other digital currencies. The scarcity of underlying assets makes DeFi’s liquidity absolutely dependent on BTC and ETH.
Digital currency is a digital currency with blockchain as the underlying technology. It is an alternative currency different from physical currency and credit currency.
Digital currencies such as BTC and ETH have problems such as violent price fluctuations and difficulty in fully confirming their value attributes. Asset attributes are more speculative.
Take DeFi’s leveraged lending business as an example. The leveraged lending business needs to use digital currency as collateral. The prices of various digital currencies are positively correlated, and the rise and fall have obvious synergy. If the DeFi market turns into a bear market and the collateral plummets, the total locked value of DeFi will be greatly reduced, triggering liquidation, driving the decline of DeFi governance coins, and creating a domino-like risk to the market.
The DeFi ecosystem needs more new basic assets that can expand credit investment to release the potential for credit expansion. In 2020, DeFi’s introduction of algorithmic stablecoin mining has spawned strong borrowing demand, but because the market value of digital assets is still relatively small, the growth potential of collateral is limited. Real assets carry a trillion market, and the digitization of real assets can expand the DeFi asset channel and inject vitality into the market.
In addition, digital securities are benchmarked against physical assets, highlighting financial attributes. Physical assets have obvious disadvantages, such as poor liquidity, difficult pricing, and complex property rights transfer processes, but they also have many advantages, such as relatively stable prices, larger volumes, and real cash flow. Incorporating physical assets into collateral through asset digitization and balancing the volatility of underlying assets is an indispensable step for DeFi expansion and sustainable development.
The incomplete infrastructure of the digital securities market and limited liquidity have resulted in limited trading volume and hindered development. Integrating with the DeFi ecosystem, the application scope of digital securities assets will be expanded.
Case: 6S trust model case
6S Capital LLC is an American asset securitization service company that cooperates with a number of commercial real estate companies to provide long-term lease financing. 6S Capital Partners LLC is an SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) managed by 6S Capital LLC. The SPV is divided into priority and inferior level. The priority is in the form of debt to lend Dai from the Maker agreement, and the inferior level is composed of other external investors. MakerDAO will protect the interests in the lending process through the regulated Wilmington Trust trust company.
The flow of funds is as follows
At present, the 6s trust lease financing loan is included in Dai collateral to obtain Maker’s first bank credit line of 15 million Dai. It is expected that in 2021, for physical assets, the Maker community will grant a credit line of 300 million U.S. dollars.
This will be a case of DeFi connecting real assets to achieve large-scale applications.
Investors in traditional financial markets face emerging investment markets dominated by digital currencies. They hesitate because of the FOMO sentiment that is eager to enter the market and they are stuck with compliance requirements. Digital securities can hedge the investment fluctuations of pure digital currency investment portfolios, reduce the risk uncertainty of investors in the encryption market, and are more in line with the risk appetite and wealth storage purpose of the market’s high-net-worth investment groups. In addition, DeFi ecological market participants are relatively more likely to accept emerging assets such as digital securities, and it is more likely that digital securities can be connected to the DeFi ecological channel.
The inclusion of digital securities will solve the scarcity of basic assets in the DeFi ecosystem, improve the asset structure, increase asset supply, and solve part of the demand for credit expansion while improving leverage efficiency. In addition, digital securities have physical objects as value protection, expand the diversity of DeFi asset services, and meet the needs of investors. And DeFi can bring the traffic necessary for the expansion of the digital securities industry, enrich the digital securities ecological service products, supplement liquidity, and increase transaction volume. DeFi and digital securities complement each other and promote financial innovation, which will have the opportunity to create a more efficient new financial market.
The advantages of gray scale are prominent, and digital securities interact with traditional financial formats
Grayscale business model has become the industry’s vane
On March 22, 2020, the Bitcoin market collapsed at the same time as the global financial market, and the price fell to near the annual low of $5,000. After several consolidations, the price exceeded US$20,000 on December 16, 2020, reaching a record high. The mainstream view believes that Bitcoin’s surge at the end of the year cannot be separated from the promotion of institutional holdings, and gray scale investment is the representative force that promotes the upward price of Bitcoin in this round.
Grayscale Investment Company is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, focusing on digital currency asset management services. Its products include Bitcoin Trust, Bitcoin Cash Trust, and Ethereum Trust. As of the end of 2020, the total investment in Grayscale products reached 5.7 million US dollars, and only about 3.3 million US dollars of investment in the Q4 quarter flowed into Grayscale Trust.
Grayscale Trust investors use U.S. dollars or bitcoin to deposit gold, and investors get the Grayscale Trust shares GBTC with a lock-up period of 6 months. This one-way liquidity trust model allows Gray to profit from exposure to the cryptocurrency market. The success of the grayscale model can have a positive impact on the digital securities industry from the following aspects:
Regulatory dividend effect
Insufficient liquidity is a major obstacle to the development of digital securities. Supervision is often regarded as a major factor in creating liquidity friction. The success of the grayscale model also reflects that the crypto asset business that follows the existing compliance system can enjoy huge regulatory dividends. If the crypto asset business can Developed under proper supervision, the investment channels of encrypted assets will be further expanded.
Business model expansion
Regulatory policies related to digital assets have gradually become clear. For example, countries such as Europe and the United States have not imposed restrictions on financial institutions to promote Bitcoin custody business. The rapid growth of investment in the encrypted digital currency market by similar gray institutions is gradually eliminating traditional financial institutions, investors, etc. With regard to market biases including Bitcoin, leading digital securities companies are gradually following the gray-scale business path to develop digital asset custody business in 2020.
The current situation and future direction of the integration of digital securities and traditional finance
After nearly ten years of development, the digital currency market has gradually been accepted by mainstream financial institutions and has become a part of the global capital market.
Digital securities are an innovation in the traditional financial industry and an inevitable asset form under the trend of asset digitization. The cumbersome compliance procedures, lengthy settlement paths, and high intermediary fees are all difficulties in traditional financing models. The digital securities industry can break through existing business pain points. Within the compliance framework, traditional financial transaction targets, carriers, and long-tail assets can all be digitized through blockchain technology.
Compared with traditional investment, digital securities rely on blockchain technology to realize automatic compliance review and decentralized real-time clearing, which greatly improves compliance efficiency and reduces transaction settlement costs. The fintech company GSX Group launched a digital securities platform in May 2020 to support the listing of digital debt securities and investment funds on the Gibraltar Stock Exchange and its upcoming digital stock exchange in Labuan, Malaysia. The blockchain solution deployed by the company revolves around risk points such as counterparties and T+2 clearing models to promote interoperability between digital securities and traditional markets. Digital innovation power represented by digital securities may lead the traditional financial market into a new stage of development.
Long-tail assets in real asset products such as real estate and artworks have higher investment thresholds, while digital securities can improve asset-side liquidity by dividing the ownership of high-risk investment assets, and attract more global investors by lowering investment thresholds.
Taking real estate equity assets as an example, UPRETS, a real estate digital securities issuance platform company under the New York Stock Exchange-listed real estate company Xinyuan Group, completed the digital issuance of the Oosten real estate project in East River Bay, New York, in June 2020, and listed it on the Seychelles Stock Exchange. MERJ transaction, this is the world’s first real estate equity digital securities successfully traded on the secondary market.
Case: Application case for Oosten digital securities to be included in the MakerDAO mortgage pool
The Donghewan Phase I Digital Securities (OST-1), which UPRETS provides technical issuance services, is now available for trading on the Equiities-SME (Small and Medium Board) of the MERJ Exchange. Unlike cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinbase and Binance, which cannot trade securities, MERJ Exchange is a licensed stock exchange in Seychelles, with securities trading and settlement licenses, KYC, AML systems, and PKF sponsors.
This digital securities issuance has at least the following parties: asset owner XIN International, property manager First Service, real estate fund manager New Dawn US, law firm, technology issuer UPRETS and alliance chain Xbolt.
The value behind OST-1 is supported by expectations of rising housing prices in New York and dividends from rental income. Investors hold digital securities, that is, they have real estate ownership and future rental income rights by holding real estate fund ownership. Users can purchase digital securities with U.S. dollars or digital assets to become a fund LP. The rights and interests of the LP will prove ownership through legal documents and Token electronic vouchers generated by blockchain technology.
The underlying Xbolt alliance chain technical support
The Xbolt consortium chain is a branch of Hyperledger, independently developed by UPRETS in 2015 and holds related patents. In 2017, Xbolt ranked fifth in the number of national blockchain patent holdings. So far, 22 projects that fully apply Xbolt’s underlying technology have been completed, covering multiple fields such as insurance, real estate, logistics and social media.
The most innovative point of this case is the confirmation of rights off-chain and on-chain. At the technical level, the registered asset information in the token issued by UPRETS can be found on the block browser, that is, the asset information is expressed in the form of Token; at the legal level, there will be a special chapter in the PPM (Private Investment Memorandum) that will not tamper with information If the Hash value is written into the contract terms, this will realize the technical and legal double binding of a Token electronic certificate and an LP right.
Use blockchain and tokenization technology to achieve immediate market liquidity
UPRETS creates a liquidity premium by tokenizing LP’s equity in the fund and fragmenting ownership on the blockchain. This process is seamlessly connected to help investors seek early redemption and the tradability of the shares they hold.
As an investment project that can generate dividends, the value of the token will be closely anchored to the underlying asset. In this way, even if the token price plunges, buyers can stably accumulate dividends at the large discounts that the market needs for a long time.
Compared with public REITs, private real estate funds, and digital securities, they are different in terms of trading venues, transaction scale, target audiences, and payment channels. Digital securities are more like small REITs. They cannot be traded on mainstream trading platforms such as SGX and NYSE for the time being, but they can be traded on ATS licensed stock exchanges such as tZero and MERJ, Fusang and other stock exchanges to open up digital asset retail investment.者 market.
High-net-worth investors in the traditional financial sector, such as institutional investors, venture capital companies, family offices, etc., need legal channels to allocate emerging assets for asset preservation needs. The regulatory framework for the maturity of the digital currency industry has not yet been established, the digital currency trading platform is full of chaos, the quality of practitioners is uneven, and the rights and interests of investors and users and the security of assets are difficult to guarantee. Digital securities are born in accordance with the law, and their compliance features make it easier to meet the investment needs of such high-net-worth clients.
Asset digitization also has the potential to solve the problems of capital and trade financing faced by small and micro enterprises at this stage. Small and micro enterprises are an important part of the world economy. Taking the Chinese market as an example, as of the end of 2017, there were approximately 28 million small and micro enterprise legal persons and 65 million individual industrial and commercial households in China. They contributed more than 80% of the country’s employment and 70% More than% of invention patents, more than 60% of GDP and more than 50% of taxes play an irreplaceable role in solving labor transfer, employment problems, enriching product types, serving society, and promoting local stability and economic development.
As China’s economy enters a new stage, the problems of “financing difficulties and expensive financing” faced by small and micro enterprises in their transformation, upgrading and development have become increasingly prominent, including inefficient loan procedures and lack of information necessary for effective business development. Since the 2008 financial crisis, banks have increased their awareness of risk aversion and have become more cautious towards small and micro enterprise loans. According to data from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in 2018, 40% of developing countries’ small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) have unsatisfied loan needs. The annual unmet financing needs are US$5.2 trillion, and about half of small and micro enterprises cannot obtain formal credit. , If you consider the informal enterprises such as individual industrial and commercial households, the financing gap will be even greater.
Because bank loan review is stricter and the cycle is longer, small and micro enterprises are seeking new financing channels to alleviate corporate cash flow and other financial problems. P2P loans are one of the alternatives to bank loans, but due to factors such as risks and supervision, P2P platforms have been shut down in China in recent years. Crowdfunding financing can fill gaps in the market in some areas, but it is mainly concentrated in technology start-ups. It is difficult for most small and micro enterprises in other industries to obtain financing from this way.
Asset digitization technology may provide another financing channel for small and micro enterprises. For example, for small and micro enterprises, especially start-up companies, it is safer and more convenient to split and sell equity by digitizing equity, reducing the cost and complexity of business processes, and making business processes more cost-effective. From the perspective of investors, digital equity is easier to trade, and has higher liquidity than traditional equity, the pricing mechanism is more transparent, and the enthusiasm of investors is more easily mobilized. The investment platform Republic provides two forms of financing for small and micro enterprises, one is small equity crowdfunding for non-qualified investors, and the other is large private placement for qualified investors. Both models are sold in the form of tokens. As of May 2020, 191 companies have raised funds through the Republic platform.
Asset digitization technology can also solve the trade financing problems of small and micro enterprises, such as increasing financing opportunities, reducing process costs, reducing process complexity, and improving transaction security and speed. Its security and transparency can help small and micro enterprises overcome information asymmetry, collateral requirements, lack of credit reporting agencies and other related issues, and ensure efficient, safe, and automated data transaction processes.
Asset digitization technology has the transparency and consensus mechanism of blockchain technology, which can replace the old verification and inspection steps, and trade financing will therefore be more efficient. The Asian Development Bank predicts that the global trade financing gap currently stands at US$1.5 trillion, accounting for 10% of merchandise trade, and is expected to grow to US$2.4 trillion by 2025. The research results show that the effective use of blockchain technology can reduce this gap by US$1 trillion.
In addition, smart contracts can simplify the business processes of small and micro enterprises and significantly reduce indirect costs such as security costs, KYC work, data storage, and other expenses. Smart contracts can not only define agreements like traditional contracts, but can also omit middlemen and automatically execute pre-agreed terms. For example, small and micro enterprises can digitize the accounts receivable assets of core corporate customers, and deposit certificates on the chain in real time to form mortgageable assets. Smart contracts will make real-time loans according to preset conditions.
2020 Representative Regional Regulatory Guidance of the Digital Securities Industry
Compliance solution for underlying infrastructure
Digital securities are digital assets with securities attributes in the legal sense. The standards adopted by various countries for the supervision of digital assets KYC and AML are basically consistent with existing standards. Decentralized digital identification is an innovation in the underlying technology of asset digitization, which provides strong support for the digital securities credit system to meet compliance requirements.
The Ontology of the underlying facility combines decentralized identity and decentralized data to carry out underlying technology innovation and protocol layer product exploration to solve the problems of “how to prove that I am me” and “how to prove that I am a qualified investor”, focusing on Data confirmation, data circulation, credible data transaction and privacy protection, to realize the credible and compliant value circulation of the digital securities track.
Market participants actively cater to supervision
Regulatory orientation is the most important external factor that affects the development of the digital securities industry. At this stage, companies in the digital securities industry are still building their businesses based on compliance.
The cryptocurrency trading platform INX.Limited was approved by the SEC in August 2020 to issue INX tokens in the form of IPO to raise funds. This is the first security token transaction registered by the SEC in the digital securities industry. The acquisition of INX is also intended to obtain The Broker-Dealer license and ATS license held by OpenFinance occupy the global digital securities trading market.
The technical side is the main entry point for companies in the digital securities industry to achieve compliance requirements and cater to supervision. Take the cooperation between Neo and Liquefy as an example. Liquefy is responsible for integrating and providing a framework for multiple countries and different regulatory systems. Neo uses blockchain technology to develop an identity system on the chain. When a transaction in the secondary market or a transfer transaction is triggered, the on-chain identity system will automatically perform supervision and screening. The sensitive personal information stored on the chain includes KYC, AML and other recognized information status, and can keep and record all on-chain The trading activity information is used for review and tracking. As a result, digital securities issuers can issue digital securities in compliance with the regulatory requirements of various regulatory jurisdictions, and market openness and flexibility will also be improved.
Representative regional regulatory guidance and realistic policies
Asia
Hong Kong
Since the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission issued a position paper in 2019, Hong Kong regulators have paid more attention to the digital securities industry, and the digital securities industry regulations have become more clear. On November 3, 2020, the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission issued a public consultation document on the proposed amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Ordinance (Chapter 615).
According to the current regulatory framework, licenses related to cryptocurrency-related trading platforms, funds and fund management platforms mainly include Type 1, Type 4, Type 7, and Type 9 regulatory licenses. Funds and sales platforms that invest in virtual assets need to hold Type 1 licenses; asset management platforms need to hold Type 9 licenses. The provision of custody services is also one of the conditions for the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission to issue a digital stock exchange license.
OSL Digital Securities became the first digital stock exchange to be granted the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission Type 1 (Securities Trading) and Type 7 (Providing Automated Trading Services) Licenses on December 15, 2020; HKbitEX is currently applying for the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission The type 1 and type 7 “virtual asset trading platform licenses” can be seen from the attitude of Hong Kong regulators on digital asset supervision.
Singapore
In May 2020, the Financial Supervisory Authority of Singapore (MAS) issued an updated version of the “A Guide to Digital Token Offerings” (“A Guide to Digital Token Offerings”). This version of the “Guidelines” is revised on the basis of the 2017 version of the “Digital Token Issuance Guidelines” and is an official explanatory document for the practical application of Singapore’s financial laws in the digital token industry.
The May 2020 version of the Guidelines outlines anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing issues related to digital securities products, and emphasizes the applicable requirements of relevant regulations, including determining risks, formulating policies, and reporting suspicious transactions. In addition, the guide lists 11 cases to illustrate the practical application of the “Guidelines” regulations.
This “Guide” is a rare official document that officially explains the issuance of tokens worldwide.
Labuan, Malaysia
The Labuan Financial Services Authority of Malaysia (LFSA) established in 1996 is Malaysia’s offshore financial regulator. Its main role is to issue licenses, such as currency brokerage licenses, and to supervise financial entities operating in Labuan.
A large number of blockchain industry organizations are gradually expanding their business in Labuan. GSX Group is currently deploying local business in Labuan. Fusang and China Construction Bank’s 2020 digital bond issuance test is also in Labuan. The Labuan government has given the blockchain industry a moderate degree of freedom in the current development.
From the perspective of the Asian market, Hong Kong has the most stringent digital securities asset supervision regulations. There are still no specific cases to refer to. Although the policy provides guidelines, it lacks practical directions. Hong Kong’s traditional financial industry has also shown strong interest in the digital securities industry. Part of the management of the Hong Kong digital currency exchange HKBitEX, which was established in 2019, was born on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
As one of the global financial centers, Hong Kong is the world’s largest offshore renminbi market, but due to its lack of resources and economic size, its status as a financial center has been challenged in recent years. From the launch of the “Regulatory Sandbox Program” to the first licensing in 2020, the Hong Kong government has continuously improved policies and regulations to promote the development of the digital securities industry. Hong Kong is expected to become a model for the regional development of the digital securities industry, and its future development trends are worthy of attention.
Generally speaking, compared with Hong Kong, Singapore’s overall regulatory framework for digital currency is relatively loose. Its regulatory environment makes various digital assets generally registered and issued in Singapore, and various innovative activities can be carried out. This is useful for the ecological development of digital assets. Certainly promote. For example, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has been actively engaged in consulting work to allow the trading of digital derivatives.
United States
In 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Regulatory Commission (SEC) will expand its policies on the regulatory and compliance aspects of the digital securities industry. The issuance of digital securities in the United States must comply with the four exemptions Reg D, Reg A+, Reg S, and Reg CF. In 2020, the SEC will increase the fundraising scale of Reg CF from US$1.07 million to US$5 million, and the fundraising scale of Reg A+ will be adjusted to 75 million U.S. dollars and re-adjusting the definition of qualified investors are of positive significance for reducing access to the digital securities investment market and expanding liquidity.
In order to better understand the characteristics of the digital asset industry, the SEC announced in December 2020 that on the premise that brokers effectively manage users’ digital (securities) assets, it will not take enforcement actions against brokers in the next five years. Following this policy under the current US regulatory system, relevant companies can provide brokerage services under a series of specific conditions, which is conducive to the overall ecological formation of the digital asset industry. The traditional securities regulation in the United States is based on the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and various rules established by the SEC. The existing regulation provides financing for emerging technology companies through ICOs. The actual needs of the company are difficult to meet.
On February 6, 2020, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce proposed the Token Safe Harbor Proposal at the International Blockchain Conference in Chicago. The proposal elaborated on the ICO safe harbor exemption system, that is, exempting the issuance and circulation of certificates that meet certain requirements, and exempting them from registration obligations under the Securities Law of 1933.
Although the specific standards have not yet been clearly formed, the proposal aims to give enterprises moderate development space. This also shows that US regulators are paying due attention to emerging markets and trying to find a new balance between encouraging financial innovation and protecting the interests of investors.
其次，2020 年12 月SEC 批准纽交所的Direct Listing Process ( DLP / DPO ) 提案，允许发行人直接上市向公众出售新股来筹集资金。DLP 模式并非新出现，但过去新股发行无法使用DLP 模式，但此次新规允许公司通过发行新股来筹集资金。
DLP 规则是针对所有类型的公司的，与加密世界无密切直接关系。从企业融资或流动性角度，DLP 并无实质优势，但对数字证券领域公司来说仍是一项利好。
新规则意在鼓励创新，让科技创新公司和其他初创公司受益。在新兴技术创新公司中，应用区块链和智能合约技术公司占比较重。继纽交所后，作为大批互联网创新公司上市首选交易平台的纳斯达克亦提交类似提案并立即获批。
其次，新规则削弱投行的中介职能，公司、项目可直接与投资人进行点对点交易，这更符合数字证券和DeFi 的去中心化、公开透明、机会平等的金融民主化理念和原则。结合美国财政部货币监理署允许银行发行和使用数字稳定币进行支付和结算，可预见，去中心化将是金融行业未来发展的方向。
从另一方面来看，DLP 直接上市规则符合公开市场「公平」原则，这一内在逻辑与数字证券背后金融民主化理念不谋而合。DLP 是对IPO 规则的改进，而STO （数字证券发行）与DLP / IPO 所遵循的证券法原则是一致。
STO 与DLP 属数字证券两个维度，两者互相补充配合，更利于推进金融民主化进程。这项新规是金融监管巨大进步，是具有划时代意义的金融创新之举，作为数字金融业态的数字证券产业或将从中受益。
欧洲
即使许多关键性监管问题仍无明确解答，但欧洲政府就加密资产形成的监管导向总体明确，合规要求框架愈发清晰。
2020 年12 月，英国国家标准机构BSI 发布证券型代币规范《 PSA 19668 》，这是该领域第一个跨链标准之一。同月，默克尔内阁通过一项新法律，该法律将取消出售证券必须持有纸质证书的要求，公开寻求在国内推进区块链交易，作为欧洲最大经济体的德国走在证券代币应用前列。
数字证券产业资产与业务演进
数字证券资产品类新态
从数字资产具体标准看，股票、债券、传统金融衍生品、应收帐款、金融理财产品、地产、艺术品及各类流动性稀缺实物资产，与去中心化金融经济模型都存在诸多落地可能性。这些数字化资产本质上是基于资产属性在合规范围内进行的创新性探索。例如，加密货币衍生品交易所FTX 于10 月推出瞄定热门股票如Tesla 、Apple 、Amazon 、Facebook 等的股权通证，并提供7 * 24 小时无间断不闭市交易。
相比一般金融产品，数字化、证券化后的金融产品从资产结构上提升了可分割性，有利于释放潜在流动性。2020 年DeFi 热潮直接推动了加密合成资产赛道的发展，黄金、美股合成资产持续进入数字资产投资市场，如Synthetix 平台允许用户以SNX 代币形式提供抵押品，创建包括比特币、法币、特斯拉股票、黄金等合成资产并实现合成资产间的互换。地产、股权类型的数字证券资产也逐渐形成规模。
基于本体( Ontology ) 公链的DeFi 项目Wing 便是实例之一，Wing 通过推出首个信用借贷产品「 Inclusive Pool 」，依托自主管理评分体系OScore，用户可实现不足额抵押，同时Wing 也在向传统领域的数字化资产进行拓展，探索数字化合成资产、传统股权资产作为抵押物的可能性。
传统金融机构与数字证券业务
股权投资是传统金融机构布局数字证券产业主要方式。2020 年，Securrency A 轮融资共筹集1,765 万美元，此笔融资由美国主要ETF 提供商之一WisdomTree 领投，跟投者包括阿布扎比投资办公室( ADIO ) ，日本金融服务巨头Monex Group 和风险投资公司RRE Ventures 等。
此外，部分头部金融机构选择与数字证券基础设施服务商合作，直接参与数字证券业务。2020 年1 月23 日，普华永道卢森堡宣布与Tokeny Solutions 的合作伙伴关系，双方将共同推出代币化( Tokenisation ) 一站式服务解决方案，涉及资产发行、流转交易在内的全生命周期管理。
2020 年9 月，新加坡证券交易所( SGX ) 与新加坡汇丰银行( HSBC ) 合作完成其首次3 亿美元数字债券发行。同年11 月中国建设银行纳闽分行与FUSANG 交易所合作发行30 亿美元规模ERC 代币标准债券，该项合作后虽被叫停，但传统金融机构试水之举，仍释放了其对数字证券市场较高关注度的趋势性信号。
2020 数字证券产业整体发展趋势总结
2020 年数字证券行业虽未迎来爆发式发展，整体市场格局无明显变化，但资产市值规模增长明显，基础设施、底层技术架构趋于完善。欧美仍居数字证券产业链顶端，美国处于绝对主导地位， 拥有核心技术资源。
主流国家政府既有监管格局仍大体维持2019 年之势，部分区域在资产数字化方向立法框架渐次成型，但审慎看待数字证券产业的监管基调未变。美国政府主导的监管政策仍是全球产业焦点，具有行业发展风向标意义。香港、新加坡等地虽不处资源腹地，市场资源有限，但政府因应经济形势通过制定可容性监管政策释放出积极信号，部分区域对数字证券产业潜力上展现出的兴趣和抱负，为未来数字证券产业实现均衡化发展提供动力。
DeFi 市场规模于2020 年大幅增长，业务生态、基础设施已初步成形，链上资产交易活跃，处于高速发展期。但DeFi 平台仍存有安全、风控、合规等问题，同时面临着资产合规交割在内的问题，主流金融投资人多处于观望状态。现实资产标的与运作模式可借助区块链技术数字化后与DeFi 互为融合，预言机、DEX 以及去中心化托管等应用出现，可为两类资产在流动性扩成层面提供解决路径。未来的DeFi 将会不仅限于原生加密资产，现实资产数字化将优化DeFi 底层资产结构，推动DeFi 整体生态进步。
发行和交易是全球数字证券产业链上的底层性业务，技术端对合规数字证券产业未来发展仍面临诸多挑战，基础设施服务不完善、全球性合规框架未成型等都是亟待解决的问题，现有发行端的协议标准尚无法处理结构复杂的资产，市场仍缺乏足够安全、合规且投资体验较佳的数字证券交易场所。
2018 年以来由于资产端质量，流动性不高等问题，数字证券市场规模发展规模受限，2020 年以来，数字证券市场企业积极寻求新业务增长点，业务重心从二级市场转移到一级市场，部分头部数字证券交易和发行平台尝试从一级市场入手，通过建立适用于数字证券产业的资产通道，提高资产准入门槛，融合传统金融存量，解决2018 年来企业借助数字证券发行融资失败率较高问题，并为后期提升二级市场流动性建立基础。依托区块链底层技术及全球化属性，数字证券行业将在资产数字化发行和交易层推动传统金融业态革新，我们相信未来3 – 8 年依托于数字证券发生的现实资产数字化将在全球范围内成为一种普遍性趋势。
致 辞
区块链作为下一代数字经济的核心技术，在为实体经济产业赋能方面具有广泛的应用前景，区块链在跨界整合、行业治理、分布式协作、危机应对等方面的能力，没有任何其他技术能够比肩。
「币安中国区块链研究院」致力于打造基于区块链技术的数字金融基础架构与服务，专注于区块链的自主核心技术研发、行业应用和治理模式研究；利用底层技术积累结合实际需求将区块链技术赋能于实体产业并量身定制一站式解决方案，从中探索产业赋能的价值最大化。
我们很高兴能和业界的各位一起探讨数字证券产业的发展，希望能带来更丰富的洞见思考，帮助有志之士拥抱数字证券发展的跨时代机遇。
——Helen Hai，币安中国区块链研究院执行院长
我想我们正在经历一场从未经历过的金融变革，基于区块链诞生的数字金融正在逐步重构现有世界金融体系的运行方式、业务模式甚至是整个产业生态。
数字资产是数字金融最为核心的组成部分，而数字资产的主体资产成份便是这份报告重点阐述的数字证券。现实资产，尤其是一些非标资产将借助区块链技术，以智能合约的形式重新出现在数字世界，这些资产也将在真正意义上突破物理界限，不依赖于传统金融中介，通过资产和资产，资产和平台间的智能交互，实现更低成本，更高效率的流转，这一社会和经济前景难以估量。
Cabin VC 专注于资产数字化工作，我们携手UPRETS、币安区块链研究院、香港数字资产交易所、直布罗陀证券交易所集团GSX Group、本体Ontology，希望能和这个方向一流的产业建设者，共同向社会传达这个极具潜力产业最新的发展讯息。
——黄海光，Cabin VC 创始人
我们很高兴能有机会能参与《数字证券产业发展报告2020》工作。在报告参与方的共同努力下，此报告突出金融科技创新、DeFi 及区块链在金融领域可以创造的重要成就，帮助行业向前发展。显然，这些创新例如通过数字资产的新创新来解决「无银行账户」，促进绿色ESG 计划并将投资者和发行人拉近距离的问题，已经对社会进步产生了影响。GSX Group 旨在通过不断增长的数字证券交易生态系统，从2021 年第一季度在纳闽推出第一个交易所开始，吸引投资者和发行人发展更紧密的联系，推动这些举措，实现资本市场民主化。
——Nick Cowan，直布罗陀证券交易所集团CEO
金融科技界随着区块链科技日趋成熟而有所突破，而在资本市场最大突破之一则是数字证券的发行Security Token Offering （ STO ），并将整个过程加快，为私募市场、中型公司及非流动资产的项目实现融资目的。
HKbitEX 成立于2019 年，是一家领先的服务专业投资者的数字资产交易所。HKbitEX 已获得香港TCSP 牌照经营机构及托管服务，并待批香港证监会的虚拟资产交易平台第1 类和第7 类牌照。
HKbitEX 正建立一个支持加密货币交易和数字证券发行（ STO ）的数字资产生态系统，透过开放的合作伙伴关系建立从通证化、发行，到二级市场交易、托管及交易管理一站式服务。我们相信HKbitEX 的任务并非取代传统金融服务，而是通过我们的解决方案化解传统金融行业的痛点， 与现有的资本市场基础建设和市场参与者合作（保荐人、经纪人等）。
这份报告点出了数字证券市场概况、重点趋势以及未来发展的无限可能。我们非常荣幸能收到Cabin VC 的邀请，并且与致力推动数字证券产业的领头人共同编写此次的报告。HKbitEX 亦会继续透过开放合作关系建立数字资产的生态系统，成为亚洲出色的数字资产交易平台。
——高寒，香港数字资产交易所CEO
随着大量传统机构和主流资金不断入场，各类传统资产与去中心化经济模型的结合已成为长期趋势。在未来，更加去中心化、可信、数据安全的STO 平台以及可以贯穿链上+ 链下的KYC / AML 监管模型也会是STO 下一个阶段的发展机会。
在数字证券赛道加速发展的大环境中，本体（ Ontology ）的技术切入点为去中心化身份，以及各类围绕去中心化身份所产生的数据管理功能、身份认证功能、以及帮助ST 实现价值流通的STO+ DeFi 创新性场景。本体（ Ontology ）目前以ONT TAG 身份验证解决方案、ONT ID 助力跨地域（跨境）证券产品销售、与币安智能链合作的STO 解决方案、基于链上信用生态的借贷DeFi 四个方面为切入点，为数字证券市场带来全新解决方案。
感谢Cabin VC 的邀请，很荣幸与数字证券赛道的各头部企业一同参与编辑。本体（ Ontology ） 会一如既往地坚持自主研发和产品创新，通过本体独有的底层技术框架，为数字证券提供可信、有价值的基础设施及产品，从技术角度大力推动数字证券行业发展。
——李俊，本体创始人
我们一直认为对地产行业来说，数字化转型是必然趋势，数据会成为比实物更珍贵，更有价值的资产。区块链行业要想长远发展，一定需和实体经济相结合，我们想扮演让实体资产数字化进入DeFi 生态的桥梁。
目前，UPRETS 的产品线包含数字证券发行、DeFi 抵押和借贷和技术基础设施三个主要方面。UPRETS 正密切和主流公链上的头部DeFi 项目建立合作，为DeFi 的抵押池贡献更多优质的基于实体资产的数字证券。我们技术团队正在针对实体资产的价格抓取、预言机开发等诸多方面进行研发，市场和金融团队也在与UBS、房地美、黑石等在内的传统金融机构和国际知名律所如OMM、Baker McKenzie、达辉等深度沟通，探索包括贷款分层等一系列解决方案。
UPRETS 一直是数字证券领域矢志不渝的坚守者，我们很荣幸受到Cabin VC 的邀请，和HKbitEX、ONT、NEO、GSX Group 等企业一同分享过往经验和未来展望。我们希望能和全世界各地，来自传统金融、地产和公链、DeFi 领域的同仁们一起，成为数字证券领域的坚守者和先行者。
——魏然，UPRETS CMO
感谢Lili Feng 接受针对美国DLP 法案、数字证券产业相关法规问题的采访。其拥有15 年金融科技、证券和资本市场经验，曾就职于美国证监会（SEC）。
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