It is universally agreed that lack of fiat currency on blockchains is an obstacle to the growth of digital assets. In cryptocurrencies, market forces solved this problem with the invention of the Stablecoin. Though trivial in value (US$172 billion total market capitalisation in September 2024) by comparison with the value of fiat currencies outstanding (US$215 trillion), Stablecoins have in the year to mid-September 2024 been used by about 180 million active addresses in US$4

The basic choice in digital asset infrastructure projects is between building linkages between systems or building common platforms. The difficulty the digital money and assets industries have encountered already in developing interoperability between platforms is a reminder that links require widespread if not universal agreement between market participants and introduce additional complexities and costs. Common platforms, on the other hand, can in theory achieve success thr

In theory, blockchain is an ideal technology for driving interoperability in financial markets because it puts digital money and digital assets on a single ledger shared with all parties at all times, ending the cost and complexity of coordinating multiple, siloed ledgers through complicated data exchanges between multiple intermediaries, each using proprietary systems, and it operates 24/7.  However, blockchains as they exist today do not conform to this promise. There are d

Tokenised assets issued on to blockchain networks need cash on-chain to create liquidity and drive network effects. Stablecoins and (to a lesser extent) e-money have fulfilled this role so far. Like Stablecoins and e-money, tokenised deposits offer the benefits of instant payment, atomic settlement and programmability via smart contracts.  But tokenised deposits have other advantages. They are a form of digital money underpinned by regulated banks. They preserve the "singlene

Payment services have made significant progress. Since 2008, when the Faster Payments service was introduced in the United Kingdom, instant payment around-the-clock has become a global norm. It is delivered not by blockchain technology but through domestic payments market infrastructures. In fact, payments infrastructures now process higher volumes of low value transactions and inter-bank payments more securely than ever before.  Other innovations are having an impact. Open B

Bitcoin has demonstrably failed to deliver on its initial promises. Although more than 15,000 businesses around the world accept Bitcoin as payment, and both payment service providers and credit card companies are making it easier to move between Bitcoin and fiat currency, it is still extremely hard to spend Bitcoin in a shop or restaurant.  This is not surprising, since the day-to-day value of Bitcoin is so volatile that consumers are reluctant to use it and merchants to acc

Digital technology has low barriers to entry. Any developer with a laptop and access to GitHub can write and distribute an application...

A Future of Finance interview with Jürgen Schaaf, Advisor of Market Infrastructure and Payments at the European Central Bank After...

A Future of Finance interview with Tony Mclaughlin, Emerging Payments and Business Development at Citi The Regulated Liability Network...

A Future of Finance interview with Gilbert Verdian, CEO of Quant Tokenised assets markets, though rich in the promise of cost savings and...

A Future of Finance interview with Gilbert Verdian, CEO of Quant. Tokenised assets markets, though rich in the promise of cost savings...

A Future of Finance interview with Gilbert Verdian, CEO of Quant Tokenised assets markets, though rich in the promise of cost savings and...

A Future of Finance interview with Alisa DiCaprio, Chief Economist at R3. A year and a half may have elapsed since the last central bank...

The architecture of the future of money is becoming visible. While cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and stablecoins such as USDT continue...

Future of Finance: There is no shortage of individual blockchain and tokenisation projects in repo, swaps, payments and securities. Why have they yet to achieve scale? Lima: The reason experiments are failing to scale is because we are pursuing siloed initiatives that work in isolation but are not integrated with each other. Within the R3 eco-system alone we have for example HQLAx digitising collateral, Finteum doing intraday FX swaps and SSImple digitising Standing Settlemen

A Future of Finance interview with Co-founders of R3, Chief Technology Officer Richard Brown and Chief Strategy Officer Todd Mcdonald. R3 first came to public attention in 2015 when a group of major financial institutions and technology vendors backed the company to work out how blockchain technologies could be applied to regulated financial markets. More than six years on, R3 is the established enterprise software company behind a host of live and soon-to-be-live blockchai

A Future of Finance interview with Peter Gargone, CEO of n-Tier Financial Services. Data is now at the heart of every efficiency...

A Future of Finance interview with Jonathan Dharmapalan, CEO of eCurrency. 130 central banks around the world are now exploring the...

A Future of Finance interview with Gilbert Verdian, CEO of Quant It is easy to fall into the trap of treating monetary innovations such...

A Future of Finance interview with Ricardo Correia, Head of Digital Currencies at R3. The decision by regulators to bring bank-issued...