According to Cointelegraph, Polygon will host Assetera, Europe's first blockchain-based regulated secondary market for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs). Assetera, regulated by the Austrian Financial Market Authority, will deploy in-house developed smart contracts on the blockchain.
Assetera aims to serve retail, professional, and institutional clients by offering tokenized financial instruments such as transferable securities, money market instruments, fund units, and derivatives. Additionally, it will provide tokenized RWAs including real estate and art. The platform will execute trading activities directly on the Polygon network using stablecoins for purchase, clearing, and settlement through atomic swaps. Trading will be available 24/7 without manual intervention. Assetera CEO Thomas Labenbacher highlighted the platform's potential to enhance liquidity and accessibility while maintaining security and regulatory compliance through the Polygon Proof-of-Stake mechanism.
Assetera supports both custodial and non-custodial wallets and plans to introduce bank-managed wallets. It has partnered with Sumsub, Chainalysis, and Fireblocks to implement Anti-Money Laundering measures. The platform holds a comprehensive Markets in Financial Instruments Directive 2018 (MiFID II) license and a virtual asset service provider (VASP) license. Digital assets classified as financial instruments are regulated under MiFID II, even with the implementation of the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) legislation.
MiFID II provides examples of financial instruments but leaves detailed definitions to individual countries. In April, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) released a consultative document on the definition of a financial instrument. In July, ESMA collaborated with the European Banking Authority and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority to further classify crypto assets. MiCA provisions regarding stablecoins came into effect on July 1, leading to the immediate sorting of the market, with noncompliant stablecoin sales blocked in Europe and new compliant stablecoins emerging.