Jamaica Stock Exchange to trial bitcoin and ether trading

The Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) is soon going to launch a limited pilot to trade bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) in collaboration with Canadian fintech company Blockstation.

On Wednesday, the JSE announced that it has signed an agreement with Blockstation to enable live trading of digital assets and security tokens in a regulated and secure environment.

The JSE selected Blockstation as its trading platform partner last year. Together, they successfully completed a live-trading pilot, which included participation from the JSE’s broker-dealer members and the Jamaica Central Securities Depository (JCSD), earlier this year.

The trial of bitcoin and ether trading will mark the second stage of the pilot project.

“This is an unprecedented opportunity for the JSE to diversify its product offerings and attract new listings and inbound investments. We welcome retail investors and companies both locally and around the globe to trade digital assets under a safe, efficient and transparent regulatory framework,” said Marlene Street Forrest, Managing Director of the JSE.

Founded in 2014, Blockstation is a provider of end-to-end digital asset trading platforms for stock exchanges. It offers compliant listing, trading, clearing, settlement and custody of digital assets and security tokens, used by the exchange’s ecosystem of broker-dealers, investors, depository and regulators.

The JSE said that it intends to leverage the new agreement with Blockstation to support international small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by providing them with a streamlined and simple process for raising capital through security token offerings (STOs) in a compliant and transparent manner.

“We are incredibly excited to reach this milestone in our partnership with the JSE, bringing digital assets including cryptocurrency and security tokens to mainstream investors,” said Jai Waterman, Blockstation’s Co-Founder and Chief Enterprise Architect.