Lendingblock, a securities lending platform for digital assets, has secured an ‘in-principal’ decision from the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) to grant the firm authorisation as a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) provider.
The in-principle authorisation comes as Lendingblock completes its platform testing period with over 30 institutions worldwide. This puts the firm well on track to launch its institutional digital assets lending exchange as a fully regulated DLT provider early in the new year.
Steve Swain (pictured), CEO and co-founder of Lendingblock, says: “As a true believer in the importance of getting our industry into regulatory shape, seeking authorisation from a leading regulator was always a priority for us. The GFSC has developed one of the most advanced DLT regulatory frameworks in the world and this in-principle decision is a tremendous achievement.”
Following this in-principle decision and the successful testing period, the Lendingblock platform is open for institutional onboarding in preparation for launch. Market participants are now able to sign up for access and will be able to commence borrowing and lending BTC, ETC, BCH and LTC across various maturities from early next year.
“Securities lending is an important aspect of most traditional market participants’ return generating strategy and we see it as a particularly relevant to the crypto economy. Our technology and collaborative work with regulators and partners has enabled us to create the market and financial infrastructure needed to meet the demand for trading digital assets on an institutional level,” adds Steve Swain.
Lendingblock continues to collaborate closely with the GFSC as it works towards being granted the full DLT licence. The firm is also in discussion with several other regulators globally to ensure that the exchange meets its strategic aim to operate on a duly licensed basis for all territories in which it operates.
