Deutsche Börse and Commerzbank team up to support DLT firm 360X
Deutsche Börse and Commerzbank have signed up to a strategic partnership with digital assets marketplace firm 360X.
Deutsche Börse has invested €10 million in the start-up, and has nabbed 50% of the firm. According to The Block, Commerzbank is taking up a smaller double-digit stake.
360X focuses on the investment in asset classes traditionally classes as illiquid. It’s starting out with trading venues for art and real estate.
CEO Carlo Kölzer says his firm uses a “highly scalable model” to enable other asset classes to follow.
Assets on 360X are tradable via tokenisation and fractionalisation, mapped onto a blockchain for investor access.
“360X aims at a megatrend,” says Kölzer. “Digital assets are an exponential growth market. We create new ecosystems and offer investors […] assets they did not have access to before.”
Deutsche Börse and Commerzbank have collaborated on blockchain projects before. The pair completed a legally binding settlement of a repo transaction on distributed ledger technology (DLT) in 2019.
Individually, Commerzbank has experimental partnerships with both Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) and Daimler Trucks.
Deutsche Börse, for its part, is building a digital asset infrastructure alongside Swisscom.
“I am convinced that Deutsche Börse has to venture into new asset classes,” says Commerzbank CEO, Manfred Knof. “With our and Deutsche Börse’s investment in 360X we see the potential to actively shape one of these digital asset ecosystems of the future.
“Commerzbank has many years of experience with DLT technology and is a sought-after expert in the emerging asset universe.”
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