Wall Street’s Guggenheim Treasury tokenizes $20M paper on Ethereum

Avatar

Guggenheim Treasury Services, a subsidiary of Wall Street giant Guggenheim Capital, has stepped into the blockchain space with the tokenization of $20 million in commercial paper on the Ethereum blockchain.

According to a Sept. 26 announcement, the product is the first digital version of commercial paper, which is a short-term, unsecured debt instrument used by companies to cover short-term obligations. It has received Moody’s highest credit rating of P-1. 

Guggenheim Treasury is one of the largest platforms for asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) managers. According to the company, it has issued and redeemed more than $10.3 trillion of ABCP over the past 27 years. 

The issuance was made through Zeconomy’s AmpFi.Digital platform, a blockchain protocol designed for trading and governance of tokenized securities.

Once issued, the digital commercial paper will be traded on the onchain platform, similar to traditional commercial papers in over-the-counter (OTC) markets — in fractionalized form and with faster settlements.

“As clearly demonstrated by the ETFs approval and the growth of the tokenization space, there is a massive demand for these digital assets,” Giacinto Cosenza, CEO at Zeconomy, said in a statement.

Related: Hong Kong’s e-HKD project expands into tokenization, programmability

Tokenized government securities have grown to $1.9 billion in assets under management over the past few years, according to data from 21Shares available on Dune Analytics.

Asset manager BlackRock holds the largest securities asset fund onchain, with over $522 million worth of tokenized securities at the time of writing. 

Source: 21Shares/Dune Analytics

A recent report by decentralized oracle provider Chainlink estimates that the global tokenized asset market could surge to $10 trillion by 2030, driven by institutional adoption, blockchain integration and regulatory progression.

According to the report, the current value of tokenized assets sits at approximately $118.57 billion worldwide, with the Ethereum network holding 58% of all tokenized assets.

A growing number of players are exploring tokenization’s use cases. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has recently completed its US Treasury Collateral Network pilot project. The project brought together 26 market participants to carry out 100 transactions using “digital twins” of Treasury bonds (USTs) on the Canton Network.

Magazine: Block by block: Blockchain technology is transforming the real estate market