The Eastern Caribbean Securities Exchange (ECSE), today announced a Letter of Intent (LoI) selecting Blockstation as a technology partner. Together, the firms will pilot the trading of digital assets including tokenized IPOs; also known as Security Token Offerings (STOs), bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) in 2020.
ECSE is a regional securities market established by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank; licensed under the Securities Act of 2001 – a uniform regional body of legislation governing securities market activities.
Blockstation provides an end-to-end platform for the compliant tokenization, listing, trading, clearing, and settlement of digital assets for every participant in the stock exchange ecosystem including issuers, investors, broker-dealers, depositories, market makers, and regulators.
Talks between Blockstation and the ECSE began in late 2018, with positive steps taken towards an agreement following successful trials of the platform with the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) – including the announcement of the first four issuers to conduct a tokenized IPO later this year – and a planned pilot with the Barbados Stock Exchange (BSE).
“The ECSE is proud to take a leading role in increasing access to and participation in our securities market through digital assets. This pilot follows the pilot being undertaken by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) of a digital EC dollar (DXCD) that will be the world’s first central bank-backed digital currency, supporting the ECCB’s goal to remove financial frictions, promote financial stability, and expedite growth and development in the member countries of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU).”
– Trevor E. Blake, Managing Director of the ECSE
The ECSE intends to leverage the Blockstation platform to provide:
- 100% insurance on investors’ digital assets.
- Prospectus+ Smart Listing Accelerator Portal (SLAP) for issuers to create and manage their disclosure documentation in preparation for a Tokenized IPO.
- Secure, streamlined KYC/AML processes to ensure trading only with trusted parties.
- Best-in-class design with a user-customized dashboard showing the bid/ask book, trading interface and market activity at a glance.
- Decentralized custodianship with multi-signature authorization in cold storage vaults.
- ChainWatch security tool for regulators to track the source and flow of assets in real-time.
- Hassle-free withdrawal and conversion of digital assets with an end-of-day settlement.
- Liquidity from a central, continuous order book with multiple broker-dealers and market makers.
The Blockstation platform facilitates access to international investors; by permitting the use of BTC and ETH in addition to fiat currencies. This enables smaller investors to participate in exciting offerings due to the low cost of blockchain transactions.
“It’s inspiring to see the vision of shared prosperity resonate so strongly in our conversations with the ECSE and financial regulators in the region. We look forward to advancing the ECSE’s goals of leveraging the blockchain to bring transparency, improved security and new economic opportunities to their citizens and global investors.”
– Matt Singh, VP of Sales at Blockstation
