Deutsche Börse, the operator of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, has shown its interest in the blockchain technology with its recent investment in blockchain startup Digital Asset Holdings.
Blockchain technology, that underpins digital currencies such as bitcoin, has become a hot topic across multiple industries. Financial institutions and companies worldwide are joining forces to unlock the benefits of the technology. It has the potential to be used across multiple sectors such as banks, stock markets, insurance, government authorities, media and much more.
Given that the business of Deutsche Börse is spread across whole process chain - from securities and derivatives trading, to clearing, settlement and custody, its interest in the technology is not much surprising, CoinDesk noted.
Heiner Seidel, a spokesperson for the group, told CoinDesk that Deutsche Börse has been interested in blockchain tech for some time, but is still seeking the best way to approach it.
"Like many other companies, at the beginning we analyzed the potential of bitcoin and quickly realized the relevance of the technology underlying bitcoin”, Seidel said.
He further pointed out that the group is already working on multiple proofs of concept for the technology and is taking a broad view of the possibilities for distributed ledgers across a number of its business lines.
"Since early 2015, we have a dedicated project which has been analyzing the market, identified potential use cases and [that] even developed some prototypes," he said.
He added that the group plans to get more deeply involved in the blockchain space going forward. The group is already a member of The Linux Foundation's Hyperledger Project that aims to develop an enterprise-grade, cross-industry open platform for distributed ledgers.
