In 2021 Deutsche Börse and Commerzbank set up a digital asset joint venture 360X. The German startup is one of just five companies licensed under the EU’s DLT Pilot Regime. The regime’s key innovation is enabling instant trading and atomic settlement through a single entity – a major benefit of DLT that typically requires a combined trading and settlement system (TSS) license. Yet 360X has taken a deliberately different path from its peers, focusing purely on trading as a DLT multilateral trading facility (DLT-MTF). It’s the only one of the five pilot firms to forgo settlement. Why?
360X Co-CEO Michael F. Spitz doesn’t believe instant settlement is always a benefit. “We can get a market maker to give you a two-way price, but if they don’t have inventory, they’re not going to give you a price because they wouldn’t be able to cover their short” said Spitz. That translates to less liquidity.
In fact, Spitz views the 360X positioning as an MTF as its unique selling point. Not only does it have licenses as a DLT-MTF, but also as a conventional MTF and for OTC trading. This means 360X can support all types of issuance and settlement platforms. That includes central securities depositories (CSDs) for tokenized and conventional securities, as well as other DLT Pilot Regime firms such as security settlement (SS) venues and TSS platforms. Additionally, it can support bespoke solutions such as DLT-based SWIAT, HSBC’s Orion or others.
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