Blockchain technology company Currency.com has launched a new feature on its tokenised securities trading platform, which for the first time will enable users to trade and invest in tokenised government bonds using fiat money, bitcoin (BTC) or ethereum (ETH).
Currency.com has issued a tokenised version of Belarusian government bonds and plans to include additional tokenised government and corporate bonds over time. Thanks to this new feature, Currency.com users will be able to invest their cryptocurrency holdings in an entirely new, differentiated asset class that presents the opportunity to hedge and diversify their portfolios through fixed-income instruments with potentially lower risk and more predictable returns.
Investors wishing to buy a government bond will make the order on Currency.com, who will then issue a like-for-like token representing ownership rights to the underlying bond, with the bond transferred to Currency.com by verified and licensed third-party institutional intermediaries with direct access to the government issue. Currency.com will offer tokenised Belarusian government bonds of varying maturities and yields. Initially, Currency.com will offer access to issue 252 of the Belarus Currency and Stock Exchange with a 4.2 per cent per annum yield, with more tokenised bonds being added over time.
The tokens will be denominated in USD and priced at USD1,000, which corresponds to the cost of the underlying bond, but users will also have the option to buy fractional tokens. Investors will receive the associated interest payments – as well as the principal amount – through Currency.com in either fiat money or BTC/ETH, which they can reinvest into more bonds or other products on the platform. Users that have purchased a whole token can request the transfer of the corresponding physical bond at any time.
Ivan Gowan, CEO and Co-Founder of Currency.com, says: “This is the first tokenised government bond on the market, once again demonstrating that Currency.com operates at the forefront of blockchain technology and is committed to delivering innovative solutions to present financial problems. Currency.com enables users to invest in cryptocurrencies, a range of tokenised securities – including equities, indices, commodities – and now tokenised bonds, providing the broadest range of non-correlated tokenised assets for investors to diversify into. With continued uncertainty in a number of smaller, highly speculative cryptoassets, Currency.com provides a welcome alternative.”
Viktor Prokopenya, Founder and CEO of VP Capital and Co-Founder of Currency.com, says: “Government and corporate bonds are an elite asset class that cryptocurrency investors have historically been excluded from benefitting, but Currency.com changes that. This is an important moment in history because blockchain technology is, once again, being used to disrupt and democratise global financial markets – and Currency.com is spearheading this paradigm shift. All this was made possible by the progressive Decree No8 ‘On the Development of a Digital Economy’ that was ratified in Belarus in 2018, affirming the country’s commitment to playing a big role in the next chapter of the technological revolution.”
