The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) recently announced that it had added over 150 digital assets to its SEDOL Masterfile (SMF) service. The SMF is a global database that assigns unique identifiers to financial instruments, and currently covers over 100 million securities and financial instruments covering (almost) all asset classes.
The SMF announcement confirms that:
A new Security Group entitled “Digital Assets” has been created and within that group are three new security types
These new security types are described by SMF as:
Digital Currencies — Digital assets which are issued to provide a medium of exchange or store of value, i.e. Bitcoin.
Digital Platforms — Digital assets that provide a means to create smart contracts. Smart contracts digitally facilitate, verify and uphold an agreement between two (or more) parties and are secured via a blockchain.
Security Tokens — Assets that are Financial Instruments that apply the decentralised properties of digital assets to financial contracts.
In comments to CoinDesk, LSEG’s Head of Data Solutions, James Nevin said that:
Naturally with the gradual institutionalisation of digital assets, a number of our clients were starting to invest in that space, so we felt it was an appropriate time to add these to SEDOL,
Of course, Nevin added a disclaimer that SMF assigning a code to something signify an endorsement, or signify any particular legitimacy to any particular digital asset.
Reportedly, the LSEG has been working with data provider Digital Asset Research for some time on a project analysing particular digital assets, and has been in communication with the ASX regarding their DLT project.