DBS Bank
DBS said it would tokenise structured notes on the Ethereum public blockchain, in USD 1,000 units, and distribute them to accredited and institutional investors through ADDX, DigiFT and HydraX.
- Status
- Live
- Announced
- (announcement)
- Stage
- Pilot
- Chain or network
- Ethereum mainnet
- Participants
- ADDX, DigiFT, HydraX
- Next review
Scorecard
As of the review on . How pilots are scored
| Ledger | Permissioned tokens on a public chain |
|---|---|
| Settlement | Off-ledger cash |
| Access | Whitelisted institutions or investors |
| Legal standing | Unclear |
| Scale | Single transaction |
What they said they would do
- OpenAfter the first cryptocurrency-linked participation notes, DBS plans to tokenise equity-linked notes and credit-linked notes.
Review history
Live Pilot
DBS's 2025 annual report, published March 2026, says DBS launched tokenised structured notes on the Ethereum public blockchain. DBS has not published issuance counts, contract addresses or the notes' legal form, so scale is single and legal unclear. No equity-linked or credit-linked tokenised notes found in DBS releases.
What was announced
On 21 August 2025 DBS Bank said it would tokenise structured notes on the Ethereum public blockchain and distribute them through third-party digital platforms, starting with ADDX, DigiFT and HydraX. Each token represents USD 1,000 of a note, against a usual minimum of USD 100,000. The first products are cryptocurrency-linked participation notes, and DBS said equity-linked and credit-linked notes would follow. Buyers must be accredited or institutional investors, and they need not be DBS clients.
How it works
The notes are issued on Ethereum mainnet and sold through the three platforms. DBS has not published the token standard, the contract address, transfer restrictions or how cash moves when investors buy. The rubric takes the less open value on each gap: public-permissioned for the ledger, since sales are limited to eligible investors on named platforms; offchain for settlement; and unclear for legal status, since DBS has not said whether the token or a separate register is the record of the note.
Record so far
The announcement gave no dates. DBS’s 2025 annual report, published in March 2026, says DBS launched tokenised structured notes on the Ethereum public blockchain and describes this as tokenising and distributing structured notes on a public blockchain to broaden investor access. That is activity inside the last twelve months, so the pilot is live.
The report gives no count of issuances or amounts outstanding. With no evidence of more than one issuance, scale is single and the stage stays pilot: the product is live, but limited to accredited and institutional investors on three platforms. The claim about equity-linked and credit-linked notes is open; no such tokenised notes appear in DBS releases found for this review.
The Regulatory Wire item on MAS’s proposed capital treatment for cryptoassets on permissionless blockchains is relevant here. It proposes the conditions under which a bank’s exposures on a public chain can take the lower-capital Group 1 treatment.
For Ethereum
DBS’s other tokenisation service, DBS Token Services, runs on its own permissioned chain; these notes sit on the public network. DBS has not said whether eligibility is enforced only by the distributors’ onboarding or also by a whitelist in the token contract. A contract address would let holders, supply and transfers be checked on Etherscan.
What to watch
A published contract address, a second issuance or an equity-linked or credit-linked note. Evidence of repeated issuance would move scale to repeat, which is the condition for production.