Noerr advises futurum bank on admission of bitcoin-backed perpetual bonds

14.05.2021

Led by Dominik Kloka and Julian Schulze De la Cruz our law firm advised futurum bank on its role as an applicant for admission of up to €9 billion worth of bonds belonging to the crypto-fintech Iconic Funds BTC ETN GmbH. The bonds will be issued as “perpetual bonds” with no fixed term and interest rate and are physically backed by bitcoin.

The proceeds of the issue will be used to acquire bitcoin, which will be deposited by the issuer on a pledged wallet. Investors have the option to terminate their bonds at any time by means of an exchange rate mechanism against disbursement of their pro-rata bitcoin stock or to sell the bonds via the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Through this innovative structure, investors can participate in the price development of the cryptocurrency and at the same time have an exchange-traded security.

The bonds were admitted to the regulated market (General Standard) of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and included in the special ETFs & ETPs segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The bonds can thus be traded via the XETRA trading system, the largest trading venue for ETFs and ETPs in Europe. The public offering of the bonds will be completed in Germany and Europe on the basis of a securities prospectus approved by German financial watchdog BaFin.

With the transaction, the Noerr team was once again able to demonstrate the firm’s depth of advisory expertise in the field of cryptocurrencies, fintechs and digital assets. Last year, a team led by Dominik Kloka and Julian Schulze De la Cruz advised Baader Bank on supporting ETC Issuance GmbH, an issuer of bitcoin-backed Exchange Traded Notes (ETN).

Advisors to futurum bank: Noerr Partnerschaftsgesellschaft mbB

Capital Markets
Dr Dominik Kloka, Dr Julian Schulze De la Cruz (team lead), Dr Dirk Buken (Frankfurt)

Tax
Dr Martin Haisch (Frankfurt)