SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) — First Regulated DLT Trading Facility

SIX Digital Exchange — Entity Profile

SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) is the world’s first fully regulated financial market infrastructure for digital assets, operated by SIX Group — Switzerland’s principal stock exchange operator and financial infrastructure provider. SDX provides institutional-grade trading, settlement, and custody of tokenized securities under FINMA regulation. SDX Trading AG holds a FINMA license as a stock exchange, and SIX Digital Exchange AG holds a FINMA license as a central securities depository (CSD) — making SDX the first entity to receive FINMA authorization for financial market infrastructure offering trading of digital securities in token form.

SIX Group — SDX’s parent company — is Switzerland’s principal financial infrastructure provider, operating the SIX Swiss Exchange (the country’s primary stock exchange), SIS (the securities settlement system), and SIX Interbank Clearing (the real-time gross settlement system for CHF payments). SDX inherits this institutional pedigree, operating within the same governance, risk management, and regulatory compliance framework that SIX applies to traditional financial market infrastructure serving trillions of francs in annual transaction volume.

Regulatory Significance

SDX’s FINMA licenses represent a regulatory milestone for digital asset markets globally. The DLT trading facility license category, introduced by the DLT Act of 2021, was created specifically to accommodate platforms like SDX that trade, custody, clear, and settle DLT securities. By granting the first licenses under this framework, FINMA validated the concept of regulated digital securities infrastructure operating alongside traditional securities markets.

The practical significance extends beyond symbolism. SDX’s regulated status enables institutional investors — pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds — to participate in tokenized securities markets without triggering regulatory restrictions that prohibit investment in unregulated venues. The FINMA CSD license means that securities held on SDX’s distributed ledger have the same legal standing as securities held through SIS (SIX’s traditional settlement system).

How Tokenization Works on SDX

Tokenization on SDX follows a precise legal and technical process. Bonds or shares are tokenized via creation of uncertificated securities that become intermediated securities by entry into the main registry on SDX’s distributed ledger. From a legal perspective, there is no difference between a digital and a traditional bond — the “digital” refers to the DLT behind the main registry, not to a different legal category.

Settlement uses delivery-versus-payment (DvP), where both the digital asset and the payment exist in tokenized form on the same DLT infrastructure. This is possible because of Project Helvetia — the SNB’s wholesale CBDC pilot that provides tokenized Swiss francs (digital central bank money) on the SDX platform. DvP settlement eliminates settlement risk (the risk that one side of a trade delivers while the other defaults) by ensuring that digital securities and digital Swiss francs transfer simultaneously.

Key Milestones

SDX has facilitated over CHF 750 million in digital bonds settled using wholesale CBDC since December 2023. Key issuances include the World Bank’s CHF 200 million digital bond (the first CHF digital bond by an international issuer, settled in wholesale CBDC), the City of Lugano’s CHF 100 million bond (settled exclusively in wholesale CBDC), and CHF 64 million in SNB Bills issued on the SDX DLT platform (a world-first in monetary policy operations on DLT).

In 2025, Citi joined SDX as custodian and tokenization agent, launching an industry-first solution for tokenization, settlement, and safekeeping of pre-IPO shares. This partnership targets high-growth, venture-backed private companies seeking secondary market liquidity through tokenized equity. Citi’s entry as a global custodian operating on SDX signals institutional confidence in the platform’s regulatory and technical infrastructure.

The October 2024 partnership with RULEMATCH for integrated crypto asset trading, settlement, and management extends SDX’s capabilities beyond tokenized securities into broader digital asset markets. The SNB extended Project Helvetia III for at least two more years (until mid-2027), providing continued wholesale CBDC liquidity for SDX settlement operations.

BX Digital Competition

BX Digital, approved by FINMA in 2025, operates as a second DLT trading facility in Switzerland. BX Digital plans to list over 100 tokenized US stocks and ETFs, targeting retail and professional investors. While SDX focuses on institutional issuance and settlement (bonds, pre-IPO shares, wholesale markets), BX Digital targets broader market access with tokenized versions of existing listed securities.

Participating Banks and Global Distribution

SDX’s participant roster reads as a directory of Swiss and European institutional finance. UBS, Zurcher Kantonalbank, Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, Basler Kantonalbank, Commerzbank, Hypothekarbank Lenzburg, Berner Kantonalbank, CM-Equity, and Kaiser Partner Privatbank have all participated in tokenized bond issuances or SDX’s central securities depository. The addition of Citi as a global custodian in 2025 extended SDX’s reach beyond European banking into the world’s largest custody network.

Global distribution operates through strategic partnerships. Sygnum Bank facilitates access to SDX for European institutional clients, leveraging its FINMA banking license and B2B platform that serves over 20 partner banks including PostFinance. SBI Digital Markets in Singapore provides the Asian gateway, enabling institutional investors across the Asia-Pacific region to access Swiss-tokenized securities through a regulated intermediary. This two-pronged distribution strategy — European through Sygnum, Asian through SBI — positions SDX as a global platform despite its Swiss regulatory foundation.

Hypothekarbank Lenzburg’s participation deserves particular attention. Founded in 1868, this traditional Swiss bank with CHF 7.23 billion in total assets joined SDX’s CSD in 2024 as the sixth member bank. The bank had already pioneered crypto banking in Switzerland, becoming the first Swiss bank to provide business accounts to blockchain companies in 2018 under CEO Marianne Wildi. Its Finstar core banking system — which processes emissions, trades, and storage transactions with cryptocurrencies — was licensed by SEBA (now AMINA) for its crypto banking operations. Hypothekarbank Lenzburg’s SDX membership demonstrates that the DLT Act framework attracts established, conservative banking institutions alongside crypto-native firms.

Digital Collateral Service

SDX launched its Digital Collateral Service in February 2025, enabling financial institutions to post selected cryptocurrency assets as collateral alongside traditional collateral. This service integrates digital and conventional assets within a single regulated infrastructure, addressing a long-standing friction in institutional crypto adoption: the inability to use crypto holdings as collateral within existing financial relationships.

The Digital Collateral Service leverages the DLT Act’s broad definition of tokenizable assets and the legal clarity around digital asset custody in insolvency. When a financial institution posts crypto collateral through SDX, the collateral benefits from the DLT Act’s explicit segregation rules — ensuring the collateral is identifiable and protected in the event of a counterparty’s insolvency. This legal certainty is essential for institutional adoption of crypto collateral, which otherwise exposes the collateral provider to unsecured creditor risk.

Trading Migration and Operational Link

Effective June 1, 2025, digital bonds issued on SDX trade solely on SIX Swiss Exchange through an operational link between SIS (SIX’s traditional securities settlement system) and SDX. This integration means that investors can trade SDX-issued digital bonds through the same trading infrastructure they use for traditional bonds — no separate platform access or account setup is required. SDX continues to provide issuance, custody, settlement, and asset servicing for digital bonds, while SIX Swiss Exchange handles the trading function.

This operational link is strategically significant. It eliminates the liquidity fragmentation that would result from maintaining separate trading venues for digital and traditional bonds. Institutional investors can access digital bonds through their existing SIX Swiss Exchange connectivity, reducing adoption barriers. The link also demonstrates that DLT-based issuance and settlement are compatible with traditional trading infrastructure — validating the DLT Act’s premise that digital securities can integrate into existing financial markets rather than requiring entirely separate infrastructure.

RWA Market Context and Growth Trajectory

SDX operates within the broader real-world asset (RWA) tokenization trend that has reached $22.1 billion in total on-chain value — a 245% increase from $6.4 billion in May 2023. Industry projections suggest the RWA market will reach $50 billion by end of 2025, driven by institutional adoption of tokenized bonds, equities, and real estate instruments. SDX’s CHF 750+ million in settled digital bonds represents a significant share of the institutional-grade RWA market, positioning the platform as a global leader in regulated tokenized securities infrastructure.

Average daily trading volumes of CHF 2-5 million reflect SDX’s specialized institutional focus rather than retail-scale volume. The platform’s value proposition centers on issuance quality, regulatory certainty, and settlement finality — attributes that institutional investors prioritize over raw trading volume. As Citi’s pre-IPO share tokenization launches in Q3 2025 and additional banks join the CSD, trading volumes are expected to increase alongside the growing universe of SDX-listed digital securities.

The City of Lugano’s serial digital bond issuances illustrate the growing institutional comfort with SDX. Lugano issued CHF 100 million in January 2023, CHF 100 million in February 2024 (settled in wholesale CBDC), CHF 120 million in October 2024, and CHF 100 million in May 2025 (settled via blockchain). Lugano’s finance chief described 2025 as “the year of change” for digital bonds — a sentiment validated by the platform’s expanding issuer base and product range.

SNB Bills on DLT — Monetary Policy Innovation

The SNB’s issuance of CHF 64 million in SNB Bills on the SDX DLT platform represented a world-first in monetary policy operations on distributed ledger technology. SNB Bills are short-term debt instruments used by the central bank to manage liquidity in the Swiss franc money market. By issuing these bills on SDX’s DLT platform, the SNB demonstrated that its core monetary policy instruments can operate natively on blockchain infrastructure — a validation that extends far beyond tokenized securities into the fundamental operations of central banking. This milestone positions Switzerland at the global forefront of central bank innovation, with implications for how monetary policy may be conducted on DLT platforms in the future.

CMTA Standards Integration

SDX’s tokenization infrastructure integrates with the CMTA Token Standard (CMTAT), the open-source smart contract framework for tokenized securities compliant with Swiss law. The CMTAT standard provides modular, audited smart contracts implementing the legal requirements for ledger-based securities (Registerwertrecht) under the DLT Act. This standardization enables interoperability between SDX and other platforms supporting the CMTAT standard, facilitating potential cross-platform trading and settlement of tokenized securities.

The integration of established standards reduces issuance costs and implementation risk for institutions using SDX. Rather than developing custom smart contract infrastructure, issuers can deploy CMTAT-compliant tokens with built-in functionality for corporate actions (dividends, voting, splits), compliance controls (transfer restrictions, KYC gates), and register management (shareholder registry maintenance).

For the regulatory framework enabling SDX’s operations, see the DLT Act analysis and FINMA token classification. For the wholesale CBDC infrastructure powering SDX settlement, see Project Helvetia. For peer entity profiles, see Sygnum Bank and AMINA Bank. For tokenized bond volume data, visit our tokenized bond dashboard. For DAO governance perspectives on tokenized securities, explore our governance section. For real estate tokenization infrastructure, see our DeFi coverage. For the Swiss crypto tax framework affecting tokenized bond taxation, see our tax analysis. For external reference, visit the SDX official website.

Cross-Border Institutional Access and Global Distribution

SDX’s institutional reach extends beyond Swiss borders through strategic distribution partnerships. SBI Digital Markets in Singapore facilitates Asian institutional access to Swiss-tokenized securities, bridging one of the world’s largest capital pools with Switzerland’s regulated tokenization infrastructure. The partnership enables sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and institutional asset managers across the Asia-Pacific region to participate in SDX-listed instruments through a regulated intermediary. Citi’s role as custodian and tokenization agent, launched in 2025, provides the global distribution capability that institutional issuers require — Citi’s custody network spans over 60 markets, enabling issuers on SDX to reach investors worldwide through existing custody relationships rather than requiring new account setups.

Infrastructure Architecture Summary

SDX operates as an integrated financial market infrastructure with four core components. SDX Trading AG (stock exchange license) provides the regulated trading venue. The SDX CSD (central securities depository license) serves as the definitive registry for tokenized securities. The DvP settlement engine enables atomic delivery-versus-payment using wholesale CBDC through Project Helvetia. Asset servicing handles full lifecycle management including corporate actions (dividend distributions, interest payments), register management, and regulatory reporting. This integrated architecture eliminates the fragmentation typical of traditional securities infrastructure — where trading, clearing, settlement, and custody are performed by separate entities requiring complex messaging and reconciliation between systems. On SDX, all four functions operate within a single DLT-based infrastructure, reducing operational complexity, settlement time, and counterparty risk simultaneously. This architectural integration is SDX’s core competitive advantage — no other regulated financial market infrastructure globally combines all four functions within a single DLT-based system with wholesale CBDC settlement capability. The architecture enables near-instant settlement finality (compared to T+2 in traditional securities markets), atomic delivery-versus-payment (eliminating settlement risk), and automated lifecycle management (reducing operational costs and human error in post-trade processing).