Today the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) has published the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Capital Market report. It finds that global fixed income issuance totalled €3,049 million in 2024, or 260% up from 2023. The Swiss National Bank and European Central Bank trials contributed to the growth, but volumes doubled even without these.
As digital bonds proliferate, one of the questions becomes what qualifies as a DLT bond? Some of the DLTs used are very centralized, while others are less so.
For example, the figures only include four small issuances on Clearstream’s D7 because the others are not treated as “crypto securities” in Germany as they are registered via a central securities depository. However, under the hood, D7 uses smart contracts and a DLT.
And many of the issuance included in the report were also issued via central securities depositories. However, third parties often have direct access to the DLT.
The figures matter because D7 alone has been involved in more than €20 billion of issuances, dwarfing all others. Deutsche Börse the owner of Clearstream used D7 to issue €3 billion in bonds in 2023. Last year KFW issued two digital bonds totaling €8.5 billion via D7 with another €9 billion already this year.
The statistics continue to show Europe dominating with Asia catching up. With the new Trump administration, we can expect more action stateside.
Meanwhile, the report refers to ‘other sources’. Ledger Insights is one of the main sources of information in this sector and we have a detailed section on digital bonds. Sign up to our newsletter to get regular insights.
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Image Copyright: AFME
