Digital assets multiplied in spring – Kommersant

The market for digital financial assets (DFA) in Russia suddenly revived – in April, seven issues were announced with a total volume of about 1 billion rubles. However, experts are still wary of the segment. They note that only large players have access to the CFA, placements are small and are more of a “tribute to fashion” than real financial instruments. However, optimists believe that the situation may soon change and by the end of the year we should expect “significant projects” in the field of CFA.

In April, seven issues of digital financial assets totaling about RUB 1 billion were announced on the Russian market. Most of them were sold by Sberbank at the end of the month: on April 17, a decision was published to issue the CFA of Radio City LLC (up to 2 million rubles), on April 25 – Soyuz Leasing (up to 10 million rubles), on April 26 – Holding culture and technology” (up to 100 thousand rubles), “GAZ Automobile Plant” (up to 100 thousand rubles) and “Radio City” (up to 1.4 million rubles).

In April, Alfa-Bank carried out the placement of financial obligations of Rostelecom for 750 million rubles. The CFAs were issued as a cash demand for a period of 90 days and with a fixed interest income of 9% per annum. “The issue took place on the platform of Alfa-Bank A-Token. Among the investors of the placement are large commercial banks, legal entities and individuals,” the bank said. Rostelecom noted that it “carefully monitors the instruments for attracting financing in order to ensure the balance, stability and flexibility of its debt portfolio in the long term.”

Atomize has announced a program to sell CFAs secured by shares in MMC Norilsk Nickel. The decision on the issue states that the limit of funds attracted by the issuer is 150 million rubles. Holders will receive dividends on shares. The maturity date is May 11, 2028.

The peculiarity of the latest issues is that they are already close to market transactions, says Vyacheslav Blagirev, head of the directorate for the development and sales of digital financial instruments at SPCE. Under the “market transaction” the expert understands the market mechanism for setting prices and conditions and attracting investors. This, according to Mr. Blagirev, is the first big positive step towards the creation of the DFA market, “there will be more and more such transactions, and with an increase in volumes, the emerging issues of methodology, mediation, and so on will be resolved.”

However, most of the experts interviewed by Kommersant are still skeptical about the CFA. “It is very difficult to see in all the above-mentioned issues some really working tool for raising funds – all the same can be done using existing tools, for example, corporate bonds,” says Roman Nekrasov, co-founder of the ENCRY Foundation.

“The DFA segment in the Russian Federation remains the lot of selected large players: an ordinary businessman who wants to raise money through the placement of a DFA will be forced to face the bureaucratic obstacles of the site itself, which are more concentrated on cooperation with large brands and big names,” adds a member of the expert council of the working State Duma Cryptocurrency Group Mikhail Uspensky. These are all experimental releases, Dmitry Machikhin, CEO and founder of BitOK, clarifies: “There is no real value in them, because there is no demand.”

At the same time, Mikhail Uspensky admits, “capital markets for Russian business have dried up, and many companies are trying to be creative, including experimenting with DFA.” Some issuers, according to his observations, “do not even hide that for them this is just a tribute to fashion and the reputational aspect comes first.”

As for the incentive program for Norilsk Nickel employees with the help of CFA tied to the company’s shares, the employees themselves will not own them, emphasizes Mr. Nekrasov. The shares and voting rights will remain with the LLC. “So far we are talking about 0.27%, but it is planned to increase the share of ownership of individuals from 10% to 25% of the authorized capital. This means that such LLCs may have the right to vote on 15% of the shares, ”the expert specified.

The secondary CFA market is hampered by the absence at this stage of well-developed processes of interaction between brokers and organizers of trading (exchanges), agrees Vyacheslav Blagirev. The implementation and implementation of the necessary mechanisms, according to him, will help form the market, determine the synergy of its classical participants and DFA technologies: “Now many have already started working on these processes. I think that by the end of this year we will see the beginning of landmark projects that will speed up the process of establishing the CFA market.”

Ksenia Kulikova