Security token conference

In Frankfurt, tokenized securities are a fixed subject of the Crypto Assets Conference. Frankfurt School of Finance & Management runs it on its campus, Deutsche Börse Group has joined as co-host, and the agenda covers the tokenization of bonds and funds next to stablecoins and regulation. Frankfurt Digital Finance has a digital assets track, while Capital & Code discusses tokenized funds and securities settlement with central bankers and corporate treasurers.

Single-topic formats have met in the city as well. The Digital Securities and Tokenization Conference took place at Frankfurt School, and TOKENFUTURE presented itself as a tokenization conference for Europe at Westhafen Pier 1 on the river Main.

Point Zero Forum in Zurich, organized by the Global Finance & Technology Network (GFTN) and the Swiss State Secretariat for International Finance, brings central bankers and regulators together with the financial industry. Its programs have covered digital assets and financial infrastructure, and side events such as Tokenization & On-Chain Capital Markets have taken place in the same week.

Digital Assets Week London is a two-day conference where banks, market infrastructure providers and regulators discuss tokenized private and public markets, atomic settlement and custody. The European Blockchain Convention in Barcelona combines its sessions with an exhibition and meetings between issuers, investors and technology teams.

The first question is the register. Under the German act, an issuer chooses between a central register and a crypto securities register, and a licensed crypto securities registrar keeps the record. The second question is settlement: a tokenized bond can settle delivery versus payment on the ledger when the cash also exists there, as tokenized deposits, a stablecoin or central bank money, and otherwise needs a bridge to the payment system. The third question is the market, where BaFin has permitted 21X to run a combined trading and settlement system under the DLT Pilot Regime.

Token standards come up as well. ERC-3643 checks the identity of each holder before a transfer, so an issuer can keep a security within the group of permitted investors.

Yes, the Crypto Assets Conference at Frankfurt School covers tokenized securities, and single-topic events such as the Digital Securities and Tokenization Conference have also met in the city. Tokenized securities come up at the other blockchain conferences in Frankfurt too, Capital & Code among them.

In most conference programs the two terms mean the same thing: a security whose ownership is recorded on a blockchain. Security token is the older word from the time of security token offerings, while banks and supervisors now say tokenized security or crypto security. Security tokens and utility tokens differ in law, because only the first carries rights like those of a share or bond.

Point Zero Forum in Zurich, Digital Assets Week London, the European Blockchain Convention in Barcelona and the Crypto Assets Conference in Frankfurt all give tokenization a large part of their programs. Tokenization in Europe also runs through the Eurosystem, which has tested the settlement of tokenized assets in central bank money.

Digital Assets Week London is a recurring two-day conference on tokenization, with banks, market infrastructure providers and the Bank of England on stage. The London Blockchain Finance Summit at Canary Wharf looks at tokenized money, stablecoins and central bank digital currencies.

Issuers and their banks, central securities depositories such as Clearstream, crypto custodians, law firms and supervisors make up most of the audience. Asset managers come to see whether tokenized funds and bonds lower their costs, and register providers such as Cashlink show how they issue and record digital securities.