[The article has been updated to incorporate comments and additional information from the official release.]

Waves, a decentralized platform to issue, transfer, swap, and trade custom blockchain tokens, has announced that it will develop a potential digital blockchain platform to serve digital assets including cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets for the National Settlement Depository (NSD), the central depository for the Moscow stock exchange.

The platform will be a set of services and a tool to connect digital assets and a payment system that operates with fiat currencies, Waves explained.

The project will also focus on developing a platform for keeping records of digital assets (including certification of token possession and settlements), along with storing private cryptocurrency keys, and conducting identification of owners of cryptocurrency wallets. The project partners are also considering whether the platform will perform valuation of digital assets based on market data obtained from leading crypto-exchanges.

“In partnering with Waves, our goal is to create a secure and user-friendly accounting infrastructure for digital assets. We consider the platform would not only provide technological and legal protection of all parties involved, but also extend variety of post-trade services for investors, custodians and new institutions emerging in this sector of economy. It is also important to synchronize our efforts with the work of regulators in this field”, Eddie Astanin, Chairman of the Executive Board, NSD, said.

Sasha Ivanov, founder and CEO of Waves Platform, believes that the project will not be difficult to implement from a technical point of view. According to him, the hard part will be the conceptual, organizational side. Ivanov said that difficulties could arise due to the lack of clear legal mechanisms that would allow the depository to operate with digital assets. However, he pointed out that the depository's press service had said that it expects changes in the legislation regarding cryptoassets, in order to minimize the risks of ownership.

“The ability to work with new types of financial instruments will be of interest to a wide circle of market participants, including banks, pension funds and retail investors. Collaboration with NSD is important for us with regard to all new and existing instruments, allowing us to ensure a high level of reliability, technological efficiency, and risk protection. NSD’s expertise and deep knowledge of market infrastructure will allow us to create a unique product for crypto asset record-keeping, meeting the requirements of a broad spectrum of market players,” Ivanov said.

According to the official announcement, Waves has already started developing a prototype and plans to release the first prototype during the first half of 2018.

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