Swiss Blockchain Company Taurus Launches the World’s First Regulated Marketplace for Digital Assets
Taurus SA received a securities firm license from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA to operate the first independent regulated marketplace for digital assets in the world. The launch of Taurus’ Digital eXchange “TDX” meets the increasing demand from banks and issuers alike to access an open and independent infrastructure for tokenized securities and private assets.
Taurus’ Digital eXchange “TDX” is the first marketplace in the world to instantly connect banks, issuers and investors to exchange any digital asset. Through the tokenization of equity, art, real estate, crypto currencies and other assets, the new infrastructure solution is aimed at unlocking liquidity for banks, company founders and even artists, among others. TDX is built exclusively around Taurus’ cutting-edge technology.
“The launch of TDX meets the increasing demand from banks to access a regulated, open and independent marketplace for digital assets. Our newest solution empowers them to remain at the heart of the future digital economy. Our vision has always been to build a unified platform that allows banks to manage any digital asset and connect private asset owners with professional investors easily.”Oren-Olivier Puder, Chairman of the Board and co-founder at Taurus
Starting May 10, 2021, market players will be able to enjoy TDX’s unparalleled levels of flexibility with regards to token standards and markets available.Securities issued by numerouscompanies and issuers, starting with Audacia Holding, a fast-growing e-commerce pioneer with 1.2 million clients, will be admitted for trading. Several banks and financial institutions are being onboarded as participants, including, among others, Arab Bank Switzerland, FlowBank, Hypothekarbank Lenzburg and SEBA Bank, as well as Investis Group, a Swiss stock-listed real estate company, and Stoneweg, a Geneva-based real estate investment company.
“We are convinced that the tokenization of real assets is the future of investment. With this marketplace, small and medium companies, non-listed large corporations and real-estate companies will have access to greater liquidity and capital, which is currently only possible for large companies listed on the stock exchange. In the long term, you can certainly even imagine reducing ticket sizes and making club deals, so far accessible again only to a certain elite, to a broader market.”Sébastien Dessimoz, Managing Partner and co-founder at Taurus
Filling a gap in the digital asset ecosystem
To operate TDX and thereby complement its market-leading digital infrastructure with secondary market solutions, Taurus has been awarded a securities firm license by FINMA allowing it to operate an organized trading facility as per art. 42 of the FinMIA. Obtaining the FINMA license represents a major achievement for Taurus, as it recognizes the quality of its team and proprietary technology that has been built from scratch since 2018.
In a digital asset ecosystem sometimes lacking liquidity for investors and SMEs, the regulated marketplace fills an important gap. With the Swiss DLT law that entered into force and clarified the legal regime for tokenized securities on February 1, 2021 and an increasing number of banks active in the space, we believe that all conditions are met to unlock the potential for private assets – which has been a firm belief of Taurus since day one.
100% at the service of banks and financial institutions
With 70% of its human capital and investments focused on technology and security, and having submitted several patents, Taurus is and will always be a technology company. It is committed to serving financial institutions by building the best and most secure technology in the market, providing them with the flexible solutions and products they need to thrive in the space. The TDX marketplace is fully powered by Taurus’ award-winning technology and represents a natural evolution of Taurus’ product portfolio, providing a secondary market gateway to its existing products. Further major milestones both within Europe as well as globally are expected in the coming quarters.
Addressing common pain points
Depending on the nature of the underlying asset and the corresponding regulatory framework, TDX is able to operate highly liquid instruments, such as central limit order books, as well as less liquid auction-based and request-for-quotes systems, again offering banks and issuers great flexibility. Leveraging Taurus’ built-in technology, any type of smart contracts issued on Ethereum or Tezos can be processed on TDX.
With this unique set of capabilities, TDX creates new opportunities and solves pain points for banks, private asset owners and investors alike.
● Banks: Taurus banking clients – many of which have already started doing so – will be able to issue and have tokenized securities admitted for trading on TDX, providing clients with liquidity where needed. These banks will also be able to extend their distribution reach to other institutions connected to the marketplace. Any other bank will be able to connect to TDX through standard FIX connectivity and access digital asset segments of their choice.
● Issuers: Taurus has always believed that distributed ledger technology should benefit private markets: there are roughly 27 million companies in Europe out of which only approximately 10,000 (0.04%) are listed on stock exchanges. Provided they pass the required due-diligence process, private asset issuers will be able to have securities admitted for trading and unlock liquidity for existing and prospective investors as well as employees. Issuers will have the choice to tokenize securities on the Ethereum and Tezos blockchains, leveraging standards published by the Capital Markets and Technology Association (CMTA).
● Investors: Professional investors will be able to access a broader range of attractive investment opportunities in private markets, with enhanced liquidity and transparency, through their banks or directly on the marketplace. TDX will initially be directly available to professional investors and banks only.
About Taurus SA
Taurus SA was founded in April 2018 in Geneva, Switzerland, specialising in digital assets and blockchain. Taurus was founded by senior executives with a background in banking, regulatory, IT and cyber security. Taurus offers enterprise- grade financial market infrastructure solutions for digital assets as well as other financial services to its clients. It is a leader in Europe and Switzerland. Taurus solutions are in production and entrusted with the full spectrum of banks: systemic banks, investment banks, private banks, retail/digital banks, crypto-banks, trading venues.
About Taurus’ Platform and Products
Depending on their business model, strategy and risk tolerance, Taurus’ banking clients are able to seamlessly manage crypto assets, including staking, to digitalize and tokenize any type of asset on any standard end-to-end, and to process digital currencies of their choice. Taurus’ product portfolio is composed of Taurus-ProtectTM, the leading secure storage solution in Europe which is currently used by more than 15 financial institutions. Taurus-CapitalTM allows banks and issuers to tokenize and manage a wide range of digital assets as well as interact with any type of Ethereum smart contract. The regulated marketplace for digital assets TDX, is connected to Taurus-Protect and Taurus-Capital. All products leverage Taurus’ blockchain node infrastructure Taurus-Explore which provides a unified API and reliable broadcasting algorithms to interface securely with over ten blockchain networks.
Photo by Hans Eiskonen on Unsplash
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