India's SEBI Launches Demat 2.0 Pilot: Three Issuers Raise Over $100M via Tokenized Corporate Bonds

Three issuers, over $100 million raised, and settlement via wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) — these are the first figures released from India's Securities and Exchange Board (SEBI) Demat 2.0 pilot program. According to The Block, the pilot allows corporate bonds to be issued in tokenized form, with settlement linked to central bank-issued digital currency rather than the traditional interbank clearing system.

Demat originally referred to India's long-standing dematerialized shareholding system in the securities market. The focus of version 2.0 is putting corporate bonds on-chain, enabling issuance, trading, and settlement to all take place in tokenized form. In this pilot, the three issuers collectively raised over $100 million — a scale substantial enough to show this isn't just a technical demo, but a test involving real capital participation.

Worth noting is the choice of settlement method. Wholesale CBDC differs from consumer-facing digital currencies — it's designed for wholesale settlement between banks and large financial institutions. Using it directly for tokenized bond settlement effectively tests central bank digital currency and tokenized asset markets within the same infrastructure.

For now, public information remains limited to this. Details such as the specific identities of the three issuers, bond terms and interest rates, and whether the pilot will be expanded going forward have yet to be disclosed.