Digital Asset Management Ltd (DAM), a company based in Gibraltar, has announced that it has been awarded a DLT Provider licence by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. This means that DAM is now authorised to operate as a Distributed Ledger Technology Provider.
The award of the authorisation follows a thorough application process that DAM was working on throughout 2018, with the aim of providing services to individual consumers, businesses and financial institutions with digital asset exchange, management and custody solutions.
DAM’s report on the award of the licence states:
“We are very proud to say that after much involved work by our team as well as efforts from the regulator, we are now among the first companies in the world to obtain a licence for digital assets. It really is a privilege to be leading the regulated environment for digital assets and we are committed to bringing best practices to a growing and highly innovative sector as time goes on. This is only the beginning of many developments on the roadmap for DAM and Gibraltar as we look to bring further services and functionalities to our customers in the future as well as develop with the jurisdiction”.
Gibraltar was the first jurisdiction in the world to set out regulations for businesses working with distributed ledger technology. The regulations are based on nine principles which are geared to protecting businesses storing and managing digital assets and investors in those assets. The principles provide the flexibility to regulate the multiplicity of business types that have been facilitated by the new technology, while still achieving robust and thorough levels of regulatory control. DLT providers licenced in Gibraltar have to demonstrate that they exercise effective controls and processes in order to adequately protect client assets, to achieve sound corporate governance, high levels of security, apply appropriate systems to control financial crime and that they consistently perform at good standards of honesty and integrity.
In their statement, DAM directors continue:
“The application process has been involved but it has been worth it. We are happy to build on our experiences in industry with the regulator and work on developing best practices. Many of our Clients have a Gibraltar connection and we are happy to continue working with the local and global community on fostering an industry with better best practices and integrity’.
DAM was incorporated in 2017 by Gibraltarian founders Sam Buxton, Philip Vasquez and Thomas Johnson. Referred to as a true Gibraltar startup as a result of the Company being the only DLT approved institution whose founding members are from Gibraltar, the Company mentions that it looks forward to servicing any Clients with a Gibraltar connection. Since its start, the company has processed millions of pounds worth of digital assets for high net worth individuals and financial institutions through its exchange services and custody solutions. It has recently added an experienced CTO as well as a number of key advisers to its extended team. A number of new features have recently been rolled out to extend its suite of available services and DAM is looking ahead to revealing further features in the coming months.
For DAM, this announcement paves the way to growing its services:
“The team truly believes that this is the end of the beginning and will allow the business to grow to an entity as envisioned by its founders – to be a firm that is able to provide best practices in the management, exchange and storage of digital assets as they exist now and as they develop in the coming years.”
