Kimber Digital Asset Bermuda (KDAB), a unit of institutional asset open finance platform Plume Network, whose corporate name is Kimber Labs, said on May 20 local time it obtained a Class M digital asset business licence from the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA).

Class M is a licence that the BMA grants by setting conditions tailored to a specific business model, scale and risk within a limited period and scope. The approval allows KDAB to carry out the full process under BMA oversight, including designing investment policies, managing assets, and issuing and distributing equity tokens.

Plume has already offered vaults through its platform Nest that let users invest in products from global asset managers including Apollo, WisdomTree and Hamilton Lane. Vaults are a digital evolution of ETFs, digital investment products that select and manage tokenised underlying assets and issue equity to investors. The underlying assets for these products are regulated instruments such as U.S. SEC-registered investment companies and Hong Kong SFC-authorised funds, but there was no comprehensive supervisory framework for the entity that bundles and manages these products and issues investment stakes.

The vault operating structure is similar to that of ETFs. When investors deposit assets, proportional stakes are issued, returns generated from the underlying assets are distributed, and redemptions are made based on net asset value (NAV). The difference from existing ETFs is that pre-designed contract code automatically handles the entire process without intermediaries such as an investment manager, transfer agent or clearing broker.

Plume co-founder and CEO Chris Yin (크리스 인) explained, "If ETFs made institutional asset investment possible for anyone with a brokerage account, KDAB's vaults make it possible with only an internet connection." Plume head of legal Salman Banaei (살만 바나에이) said, "The framework the BMA applied to KDAB is an important milestone in the global digital asset market," and added, "By adopting the latest technology, it produced regulatory outcomes equivalent to, or exceeding, policy objectives."