S&P Dow Jones Indices has tokenized its iBoxx US Treasuries Index on the Canton Network, making its main fixed income benchmark available as a digital asset and signaling a shift towards onchain data infrastructure in customary finance.
In Tuesday’s announcement, S&P said the index was brought online with Kaiko, a digital asset market data and infrastructure provider that handles tokenization and onchain delivery of the index.
The iBoxx US Treasuries Index is a widely used benchmark that tracks the performance of US government bonds over various maturities and serves as a benchmark for institutional investors and fixed income products.
A tokenized index is not a product in which you can invest. Instead, it is aimed at financial institutions creating digital products, enabling them to integrate benchmark data, including price levels and indices, directly into blockchain systems.
S&P Dow Jones Indices will continue to control who can access and employ the index through permissions built into the token itself. Kaiko provides the technology to issue and access the index on the blockchain.
The companies said the approach could be expanded to other indices as interest in blockchain-based financial systems grows. The goal is to make reference data easier to access and employ, especially as U.S. Treasuries play a greater role as collateral in digital financial markets.
Canton Network is a public blockchain focused on institutional applications with over 600 participating institutions and validators. It is supported by Goldman Sachs and Citadel, among others.
Related: Moody’s makes credit ratings available online through integration with Canton Network
The US Treasury is at the forefront of this movement
The decision to start with the iBoxx index is intentional. The S&P Dow Jones and Kaiko indices said U.S. Treasuries are becoming the “base layer” for on-chain financial systems, reflecting their growing role as collateral and a key entry point for institutional activity.
Placing the index onchain allows financial institutions building blockchain-based products to have more direct access to the widely used Treasury benchmark, without relying on customary data sources and licensing processes.
US Treasury products already dominate the tokenization market. According to industry data, more than $12.5 billion worth of treasury bonds have been tokenized on the network, more than any other asset class.
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