Swiss Distributed Ledger technology (DLT) bill
Since 2017, efforts have been underway in various jurisdictions such as Liechtenstein, Germany, France, Japan, Singapore and, of course, Switzerland to encourage the further development and legal embedding of DLT-based assets, while also limiting the associated risks.
In contrast to Liechtenstein, Switzerland has not created a new law on its own, but has introduced amendments to existing (federal) laws in 2021 to deal with crypto-based assets, for example in the Swiss Code of Obligations (“CO”), where the creation of so-called ledger-based securities is regulated in Art. 973d et seq. CO.
Ledger-based security
A ledger-based security is a right which, in accordance with an agreement between the parties, is entered into a securities ledger and may only be exercised and transferred to others via this securities ledger. It thus constitutes a novel, completely electronic form of a security that is digitally transferrable by means of a blockchain- or DLT-based infrastructure. In this way, all claims or membership rights that could also be issued as “traditional” (paper-based) fungible negotiable securities or as simple uncertificated securities may now be issued purely digitally. Examples for such ledger-based securities are the equity shares issued by Swiss companies limited by shares via the daura platform.
Token standard for securities
The CMTA token standard for securities (CMTAT) is a digital token framework that enables the creation of ledger-based securities in accordance with Swiss law. The CMTAT was primarily conceived for the tokenization of equity shares. Its modular structure does however also make it suitable for the tokenization of other forms of securities, such as debt instruments or structured products. Furthermore, CMTAT includes support functionalities, such as reliable deployment and gasless transactions.
CMTAT mainly differs from the previous version CMTA20 in the following aspects:
- A…
