Amina Becomes First Bank on EU's DLT Platform 21X
Swiss-regulated crypto bank Amina has become the first banking participant on 21X, a European Union-regulated platform for trading and settling tokenized securities. Announced on Monday, the partnership makes Amina a listing sponsor on the venue, which operates under the EU's Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) pilot regime. This integration aims to directly connect traditional financial institutions with a blockchain-based market, supporting companies that issue digital securities through Amina's collaboration with technology provider Tokeny.
Tokenized Asset Market Reaches $26.5B as EU Tests Framework
The move comes as the market for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) reaches a total value of $26.5 billion, highlighting the significant financial incentive for creating robust digital market infrastructure. The 21X platform received its operational permit in December 2024 under the EU’s DLT pilot regime, a regulatory sandbox introduced in 2023 to experiment with blockchain-based financial instruments. This framework seeks to solve critical adoption hurdles like the lack of common platforms for transacting, a key issue for scaling the market.
Scale will only be achieved when numerous market players are transacting with each other on common or interconnected platforms.
— Yves Mauchle, Zurich partner at Baker McKenzie.
Europe Accelerates Tokenization Efforts to Compete Globally
Despite this progress, the EU's regulatory pilot has faced criticism for limits that could hinder its ability to scale and compete with other jurisdictions. In February, eight EU-regulated digital asset firms urged policymakers to accelerate digital asset legislation, warning that the bloc risks falling behind the United States. Other recent European developments include Kraken launching tokenized securities trading for its users in September and tokenization platform Ondo receiving regulatory approval in Liechtenstein in November to offer similar products.
