Immy Dorse 
Well, here’s something you don’t see every day. DBS, Singapore’s biggest bank, is taking a pretty significant step with its blockchain plans. They’re moving some fairly complex financial products onto a public blockchain, specifically Ethereum. It’s a shift that could open up a whole new pool of investors.
But let’s be clear, this isn’t for everyone just yet. The bank announced it will distribute these tokenized instruments through a few local Singapore exchanges—ADDX, DigiFT, and HydraX. The key point is that for the first time, these aren’t just for their own private banking clients. They’re making them available to other accredited and institutional investors out there.
What Exactly Are They Offering?
The first product out the gate is a crypto-linked note. Essentially, it pays out in cash when digital asset prices go up, while supposedly limiting the potential losses on the downside. It’s a way to get exposure without, you know, holding the actual volatile coins.
These structured notes have traditionally been a game for the wealthy. We’re talking minimum investments around a hundred thousand dollars, often custom-made for a specific client. That makes them non-fungible, meaning each one is unique and not easily traded.
The tokenization changes that completely. By breaking each instrument into smaller units of a thousand dollars, they become fungible. Suddenly, they’re easier to trade and offer a lot more flexibility for someone managing a portfolio. It seems like a logical move, doesn’t it?
Why Now, and Who’s It For?
According to the bank, demand has been surprisingly strong. Investors are apparently looking for more sophisticated ways to weave digital assets into their holdings. The numbers they shared are pretty striking: over a billion dollars in trades for these instruments in the first half of 2025 alone. Volumes jumped almost 60% from the first to the second quarter.
This seems tailor-made for a specific crowd. Think family offices and professional investors, a segment that’s exploded in Singapore. The number of single-family offices there shot up by 43% year-on-year, topping 2,000 in 2024. That’s a lot of concentrated wealth looking for a home.
The Bigger Picture in Singapore
This isn’t happening in a vacuum. Singapore is really pushing to cement its role as a center for this kind of tokenized finance. The Monetary Authority of Singapore, the MAS, has its Project Guardian initiative. It’s been exploring how to tokenize all sorts of assets—bonds, foreign exchange, funds—while also working on the underlying cross-border infrastructure needed to make it all work smoothly.
DBS has been right in the middle of those pilots, usually starting on private, permissioned blockchains before even considering a public chain like Ethereum. That makes this public move notable.
And this is likely just the start. While the initial focus is on these crypto-linked notes, the bank said it plans to tokenize more traditional stuff next, like equity- and credit-linked notes. It feels like they’re testing the waters with a newer asset class first.
A quote from Li Zhen, their head of foreign exchange and digital assets, called asset tokenization “the next frontier.” He said it addresses a growing institutional appetite and allows a broader group to tap into their digital asset ecosystem. It sounds like a sales pitch, but perhaps there’s some truth to it. Only time will tell if this convenience and access truly resonate with investors.
