A wine collection will be the first product to receive tokenization in Switzerland with the new laws on blockchain technology that partially came into effect in the country on Monday (01). The new asset class started with the partnership between Sygnum Bank and the wine company Fine Wine Capital AG, as communicated jointly by the institutions.
“The new legal provisions pave the way for the next generation of securities on the blockchain and provide a robust legal basis for realizing the potential tokenization of assets,” says the note.
According to a statement, the assets are tokenized on Sygnum’s Desygnate platform and issued in accordance with the legal framework and fully recognized in a new category of securities based on DLT.
For the co-founder of Fine Wine, Alexandre Challand, innovation paves the way for new investors, both private and institutional. “This gives them the opportunity to efficiently maintain, negotiate or request a physical settlement of this unique asset,” he commented.
Blockchain association celebrates
The Swiss Blockchain Federation, which is the country’s blockchain association, said in a note that in mid-December, the Federal Council decided to place parts of the blockchain proposal that had been approved in September by parliament. The organization celebrated that assets can now live without paper and, unlike those traded on the stock exchange, without banks.
“Instead, registration fee rights are” printed “on cryptographic tokens, which, like cryptocurrencies, can be transferred digitally and directly from person to person without an intermediary,” he explained.
Gino Wirthensohn, head of technology at Sygnum Bank, followed the same speech. For him, the legal provisions that come into force on Monday guarantee that asset tokenization is now a viable alternative to traditional securitization.
He also celebrated the Swiss lawyer Cornelia Stengel, who participated in the drafting of the new blockchain legislation. “This means that, as of today, it is possible to transfer rights and claims in a purely digital manner and without the involvement of an intermediary,” he wrote in his Linkedin account.