Etrading Software, through its non-profit division the DTI Foundation, launched a new service to enable the tracking of all digital assets on a global basis. The service will issue identifiers for digital assets based on the new ISO standard, the Digital Token Identifier. ISO has selected Etrading Software to be the Registration Authority for this standard.
The DTI Foundation has already issued identifiers for the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, thereby enabling all major cryptocurrencies to be tracked, including bitcoin, ether, tether and ripple. With the opening of registration to market participants, the DTI Foundation also commits to issuing additional identifiers as required by market participants and regulators, with global stablecoins being a priority area given their potential systemic impact.
The new service is complementary to the existing ISO standard for tracking counterparties to a trade via the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI). It is designed by the same committee that has defined the ISO standard for the Unique Product Identifier (UPI) for tracking all OTC derivatives globally. Both the LEI and the UPI have been recommended by the Financial Stability Board to be used for regulatory reporting of trades across the G20 to enhance risk management and increase transparency in traditional capital markets.
The DTI extends the scope of the ISO standards to the digital token asset class. With the DTI Foundation’s launch of the DTI service, a key building block is now in place to upgrade the financial market plumbing to process digital asset trades safely and with appropriate oversight. Until now, such monitoring and tracking was impossible due to the lack of available ISO standards for digital assets.
The DTI can be used by regulators to monitor digital asset trades for anti-money laundering / combating terrorist financing requirements and also for monitoring systemic risks arising from the trading of global stable-coins and other digital assets. The DTI can be used by market participants to uniquely identify a given digital token (for example to distinguish unambiguously between ‘Bitcoin’ and ‘Bitcoin Cash’) thereby increasing transparency for market participants and reducing operational risk.
Dominique Tanner, chair of ISO/TC 68/SC 8, said in a statement, “ISO 24165, can be used by investors, exchanges, data aggregators, ecosystem participants, regulators and issuers, who can now submit an application to register a fungible digital token and receive a DTI, which is a random, unique and unambiguous identifier. Registration eligibility for the DTI is based on objective and verifiable information provided by the applicant. This will help the market identify different tokens that may be exchanged, aggregated, listed, or tracked.”
Sassan Danesh, managing partner of Etrading Software, said in a statement, “This is an important step for the industry in being able to identify digital assets, in a standardized way and reduce ambiguity, increasing transparency and consistency, enabling further global interoperability and lower the bar for greater institutional investment in this burgeoning asset class.”