Bankers are doing grown-up stuff with crypto now
Turning cash into code will reduce the number of steps in market transactions and trades, allowing for instant settlement and programmable rules on where money goes and when.
Decades ago, Australia’s primary stock exchange opted to transition share trades to a blockchain-based clearing and settlement system, aiming to harness the technology's valuable aspects while sidestepping the cryptocurrency hype. However, the endeavor proved costly, cumbersome, and ultimately abandoned, much like Facebook's unsuccessful metaverse project.
In the current climate, major Wall Street institutions like JPMorgan Chase are transforming financial securities into digital tokens, the London Stock Exchange is racing to match crypto competitors by facilitating nonstop 24-hour trading, and credit card giant Visa is contributing to a group of financial firms developing a stablecoin, backed by the US dollar.
Is blockchain, the foundation of these innovations, returning to its projected future? It's not just the usual hype-driven optimism suggesting this is the definitive moment for decentralized ledgers – the distributed digital system enabling crypto tokens as a means of exchange. Former head of France's securities regulator, Robert Ophele, asserts that tokenization has become permanent.
The technology is no longer a novelty, he claims, while the US administration under Donald Trump has endorsed the technology, and prominent financial institutions are investing significant resources into it.
Written by urgent.news from Japan Times's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
