From Nasdaq’s new digital asset suite to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation’s recently announced Ethereum-based prototype for asset management, we’re seeing more and more industry giants discover the value of blockchain technology for applications way beyond cryptocurrency. These major market players aren’t just streamlining antiquated, often manual, processes around asset servicing. They’re rebuilding market infrastructure and launching completely new financial instruments with built-in rights, controls, and compliance.
As the Ethereum network comes up on the five-year anniversary of its original launch, it’s impossible not to reflect on how far this technology has come, especially for enterprise use cases. Even just a year ago, the engineering lift on some these blockchain-based solutions for capital markets would have been significant. Now, there are full stack, all-in-one products that make it easy for organizations to demo and implement this technology, and with enterprise-grade privacy and performance.
In his history of early twentieth-century innovation, The Big Change, Frederick Lewis Allen writes, “Several years went by before the public grasped what the [Wright brothers] were doing.” They say invention is only the first step of innovation. The next step is helping the world notice what has changed.