Boerse Stuttgart Group has developed a flexible method for financing industrial capital goods on a blockchain basis in a joint basic research project with the Bosch research team “Economy of Things”, Daimler Mobility and technology partner 51nodes.

In addition to technical feasibility, the project, which has been running since May 2019, also covered legal and regulatory aspects.

The new method allows for investment in industrial capital goods such as machinery, vehicle fleets or energy infrastructure via digital tokens. On the other hand, the issuer of the tokens has the advantage of linking its financing costs to the actual utilisation of the financed goods according to a pay-per-use model.

The provision of relevant usage data creates transparency and forms the basis for variable payouts to investors. The Ethereum blockchain has been selected as the technical basis for the project. The project partners have filed a patent application for a process that links the usage data to the token.

‘The project shows what novel investments are possible with blockchain-based tokens for investors in the industrial sector. At the same time, companies gain greater flexibility for the financing of capital goods. With a view to this and further new markets we are creating an end-to-end ecosystem for the issuance, trading and custody of digital assets,’

says Dr Ulli Spankowski, Chief Digital Officer of Boerse Stuttgart GmbH.

Featured image credit: Börse Stuttgart