SWIAT GmbH, a German  fintech company specialising in the development of blockchain software  and a tokenisation platform for an open, decentralised financial market  infrastructure, has supported Bank of Greece in “Project Sovereign”, a  simulation of a digital sovereign bond issuance on the SWIAT blockchain. 

Conducted under real market conditions, Project Sovereign covered a full  digital bond lifecycle: issuance, several secondary market transactions, as  well as coupon payment and redemption, all of which were executed using  SWIAT Blockchain technology to enable Delivery-versus-Payment (DvP)  settlement in interbank business. 

In Project Sovereign, the Bank of Greece acted as both the sovereign bond  issuer and the CSD with a registry. Berliner Volksbank, DekaBank, Eurobank,  KfW, LBBW, National Bank of Greece, and Piraeus Bank took on the roles of  investors. SWIAT acted as the software provider and furthermore simulated  the role of a digital custodian bank, which enables offchain investors to  participate. 

During Project Sovereign, SWIAT's Digital Assets Software facilitated the  tokenisation and secure transfer of digital bonds on the blockchain, thereby  ensuring transparency and immutability. Furthermore, in the absence of  central bank digital currency options, SWIAT's versatile platform enabled the  creation of simulated EUR tokens on a separate dedicated environment for  the payment process – inspired by the setup of Bundesbanks’  Triggersolution and the upcoming digital wholesale payments solution by  ECB, Pontes. Through the interplay between the asset and payment  blockchains, DvP was successfully processed.  

Project Sovereign made it possible to model end-to-end transaction flows  in a realistic, fully controllable setting, demonstrating how the SWIAT  blockchain platform can adapt to evolving market needs and support  innovative financial instruments. 

Jonathan Leßmann, SWIAT CMO, said: “As the technology provider and  facilitator of Project Sovereign, we provided the DLT platforms and allowed  all participants to operate confidently across the full digital sovereign bond lifecycle, catering each individual requirement depending on their needs,  including CSDs, custodians, and banks. The outstanding collaboration from  our Greek and German partners contributed to the great success of this  international project, showcasing the scalability, interoperability, and  production-grade level of SWIAT's solution in Europe.” 

Theodore Pelagidis, Deputy Governor of Bank of Greece, said: “Building on  the strong cooperation and positive outcomes of the previous project,  Project Sovereign extends both scope and ambition. Acting as CSD and  registrar, we further validated how traditionally separate capital-market  roles can be executed coherently in a blockchain-based environment.  Operating end-to-end across the sovereign bond lifecycle deepened earlier  insights and demonstrated the potential of DLT to enhance efficiency,  transparency, and operational resilience within regulated infrastructure. The  sandbox environment supported close alignment with central bank and  Eurosystem principles while strengthening European-level collaboration,  contributing to the path toward scalable, production-ready sovereign  issuance models and Europe’s digital capital-market sovereignty”. 

Tim Armbruster, Group Treasurer at KfW, added: “Next-generation  technologies will significantly shape the digital capital market of the future.  Our own learning journey has shown that hands-on experience is the most  effective way to make both the opportunities and the challenges associated  with new technologies tangible. To develop a scalable digital ecosystem,  European, cross-institutional collaboration is essential. In this way, we can  effectively strengthen not only digital sovereignty but also Europe’s  competitiveness in the global context. Initiatives such as Project Sovereign  make a concrete contribution to this.” 

SWIAT’s vision is to create a single global standard for the processing of  blockchain-based securities. A key feature of the SWIAT ecosystem is that  capital market, compliance and regulatory aspects are taken into account  in the conception phase, thereby offering security and compatibility with  regulatory requirements. 

SWIAT forecasts digital assets to grow in importance globally in the coming  years as tokenisation increases. In Europe, SWIAT estimates that an open  decentralised financial market will grow more than 60 percent per year  (CAGR) to more than €5 trillion by 2030.