We just returned from BlockchainUA in Kyiv at September 20th and it was an exciting and inspiring event. We met the most important contributors in the Blocktech space with the likes of Distributed Lab’s Pavel Kravchenko, Forklog, Shelf Network, Okex, and Kuna. Our speech on FMA-compliant asset tokenization in Germany and the EEA was received with great enthusiasm and a lot of questions. Here we provide here a brief breakdown of the most essential aspects of financial instrument tokenization with an emphasis on the Real Estate industry. 

Whilst the ownership of tangible assets is still impossible in all jurisdictions due to paper-based processes and public registries the ownership transfer can be done safely and legally on a blockchain through a workaround. Fund shares and bonds can be issued, transferred and traded digitally.

Financial instruments that do not require a certificate and central depository can be tokenized. For now, this applies to debt and mezzanine instruments only.

Whilst the issuance of a traditional bond requires the work and coordination of more than 10 different offices, agencies and other stakeholders, the issuance of a security token can be undertaken with a lot less bureaucratic hurdles. Especially when partnering up with an experienced consultancy that has already established connections to regulators, intermediaries and gatekeepers.

In a recently realized funding project for a commercial real estate project in Hamburg, Germany Blockzeug’s efforts reduced the costs of raising EUR 3 Mio in investment to less than 1 per cent of the initial investment sum. 

Furthermore we discussed in depth the official How-to-Guide by the German financial market authority BaFin and shared some insights on several approval processes that Blockzeug itself has facilitated for recent projects. 

We rounded up the topic with a 30 minutes Q&A session. Unfortunately there was not enough time to answer any and all questions on stage but most inquiries could  be discussed in smaller groups in subsequent meetings throughout the conference. 

It was a great event and we have been proud contributors. If any questions from my speech remain I will happily answer them, please reach out!