Sebastian Liebscher in a BitcoinBlog interview: where eWpG crypto securities save costs and why tokenised money and connected registers are missing.
Original: Christoph Bergmann, BitcoinBlog.de, 21 November 2023 (in German)
In November 2023, BitcoinBlog interviewed Sebastian Liebscher about crypto securities. He explains the difference: central register securities are recorded in a central register maintained by a central securities depository or a custodian bank authorised by the issuer. Crypto securities require a licensed crypto securities register operator and are issued as tokens.
He sees the main benefits in the middle and back office: corporate actions via smart contracts, real-time delivery versus payment and faster mobilisation of collateral. For this to work, tokenised money is needed. The bottleneck is connectivity between register operators and custodian banks; Liebscher compares it with charging infrastructure for electric cars. Large banks have set up working groups, whereas asset managers and investment management companies often do not yet have the topic on their radar.
The interview reflects the legal situation as of November 2023. One important point has changed since then: under the Future Financing Act (Zukunftsfinanzierungsgesetz), which largely entered into force on 15 December 2023, shares can be issued electronically. Registered shares can also be issued as crypto securities, bearer shares only as central register securities (BTC-ECHO, in German).
