Knowing Digital Bond: Legal Certainty of Digital Bonds in Indonesia

The use of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) in the capital market is becoming attractive for debt issuance and financing. Indonesia already has a digital bond product, but the IDDB product is still in the sandbox/regulatory testing phase, not fully regulated by market standards. In other words, Digital Bonds in Indonesia still lack a comprehensive regulatory framework, and oversight and law enforcement remain weak, impacting the legal protection for investors. This study aims to analyze and assess the legal certainty and regulations governing digital bonds. This study also aims to address the following research questions: 1) Are digital bond instruments categorized as securities? 2. How do capital market regulations (such as the Capital Markets Law) and digital financial asset regulations regulate them? This research is a normative legal research (doctrinal research). The approaches used in this research include a statutory approach and a conceptual approach. The research results found The IDDB Token is the first bond tokenization product in Indonesia, registered in the OJK sandbox since 2024. This product enables digital bond issuance and ownership through blockchain technology and smart contracts, opening broader investment access for retail and institutional investors. The regulation of bond tokenization products still refers to the Financial Services Authority Regulation Number 13/POJK.02/2018 dated August 15, 2018 (POJK IKD) concerning Digital Financial Innovation in the Financial Services Sector which was updated and replaced by Financial Services Authority Regulation Number 3 of 2024 dated February 16, 2024 concerning the Implementation of Financial Sector Technology Innovation (POJK ITSK) to be able to obtain permission from the OJK to carry out business operational activities, product innovation, activities, and services that use business models that are tested and developed in the Sandbox.