Asia's Crypto Scene Heats Up with Tokenized Bonds, Stablecoins, and Cross-Border Payments
India's Securities and Exchange Board (SEBI) has launched the Demat 2.0 pilot, leveraging blockchain and the Reserve Bank of India's wholesale digital rupee to issue and settle tokenized corporate bonds.
The pilot aims to tokenize $620B in the corporate bond market, with state-owned power financier REC issuing 5 billion Indian rupees ($56 million) worth of bonds via the system this month. Larsen & Toubro followed with an issue of the same size, while non-bank financial institution IIFL Finance issued 250 million Indian rupees (around $2.8 million) in bonds.
The Demat 2.0 pilot links the tokenized bond ledger with the wholesale digital rupee through RBI's Unified Market Interface, enabling simultaneous transfer of bonds and payment funds to mitigate settlement risk.