Distributed-ledger technology
This Week: Goldman Sachs, MSCI/MarketAxess, Cboe/ErisX, & more
A summary of the latest financial technology news.
Waters Wrap: Blockchain & Boca—A sad story
Anthony takes issue with how blockchain is still being covered in the media and at industry conferences. What else is new?
Biden approach could leave US behind on crypto regulation
Long timeline of executive order means international community may move faster than US lawmakers
Where have all the blockchain startups gone?
Building a startup is hard. Building a blockchain startup is harder. More than 10 current and former financial blockchain builders and users detail their experiences of trying to cut their teeth on a once-darling tech, and the lessons they’re still…
What the hell is Web3, anyway?
The next iteration of the internet is upon us, with the potential to deliver radical shifts to every industry, including banking. The movement, which is currently buoyed by the prospects of blockchain and virtual reality, has implications for computing,…
Vanguard eyes DLT for FX forwards after smart contract success
The fund giant hopes the roll-out of the tech in 2022 will deliver greater efficiency and pricing benefits.
In the race to institutionalize crypto, participants eye familiar tech ‘wrappers’ for new assets
Despite the development of digital assets overall, and interest in cryptocurrencies remaining strong among individual investors and niche firms, widespread institutional adoption remains muted. Wei-Shen Wong looks at the tools being developed to support…
From overhype to practical use cases: the DLT projects that gained ground in 2021
WatersTechnology reflects on some notable distributed ledger technology projects.
Waters Wavelength Podcast: DTCC’s Peve on using tokenization to streamline private markets
Jennifer Peve, managing director and head of strategy and business development at DTCC, discusses the Digital Securities Management (DSM) platform the firm is working on for US private markets.
Slow burn to a big bang: How the new wave of tech is changing market data platforms
For decades, market data platforms have been critical components of financial firms’ trading infrastructures. But with changing user needs and emerging technologies gaining ground, will the platforms of the past be replaced by upstart challengers—or can…
ASX goes live with new DLT-as-a-service platform
Synfini enables customers to access the exchange’s DLT infrastructure, data hosting, ledger services, and support.
Waters Wrap: CME & Google—the first domino falls
Anthony explores some of the unanswered questions—and potential ripple effects—that come with the new partnership between CME and Google.
Waters Wrap: Examining Digital Asset’s DLT strategy (and its broader implications)
Digital Asset has slowly expanded its influence with exchanges in the APAC region, and this year has made additional inroads in the US and Europe. Anthony examines the company's wins and losses over the last seven years.
Waters Wrap: Will privacy-enhancing tech for the back office fall flat?
Anthony says that banks should be more concerned with cleaning up the technical debt accumulated in the back office, rather than dumping money into bleeding-edge technologies.
ASX builds ‘DLT-as-a-service’ offering to help prep market for Chess replacement
The exchange’s customer Daml sandpit has been up and running since January and has had over 20 firms log on. The next phase—its DLT cloud environment—will be ready in early October.
This Week: Macrobond/FactSet, Tradweb, Bloomberg, DTCC, and more
A summary of some of the past week’s financial technology news.
Sell side pushing for bilateral connectivity for fixed income
Fixed-income liquidity providers, battling tighter margins, want to execute directly with clients, but are buy-side and tech firms willing to absorb the connectivity costs?
MarketAxess builds out flagship e-trading platform for loans functionality
The platform operator plans to extend its all-to-all corporate bond trading expertise to the loan market, which lags other fixed-income instruments in both tech adoption and the level of transparency.
Firms can't afford to miss out on digital assets, says SBI Digital Markets
Waters Wavelength Podcast Interview Series: Kris Hopkins, now head of capital markets at SBI Digital Markets, discusses the opportunities for capital markets firms in the digital asset space.
Waters Wrap: A blockchain problem (And an alt data problem)
Anthony first looks at the alternative data industry and connects to QAnon, before explaining why there needs to be more hard numbers in the world of blockchain.
What can HKEx’s Synapse learn from watching ASX’s game of Chess?
HKEx is looking to leverage smart contracts for its Synapse platform. Sell-side participants are generally positive as to the reasoning behind the build, but observers warn the ambitious project still has challenges to overcome.
This Week: JP Morgan, Deutsche Börse, Refinitiv, and more
A summary of some of the past week’s financial technology news.
Waters Wrap: Buzzwords and the hype machine (And editorial judgment)
Anthony previews some of the major trend topics that WatersTechnology will look to cover over the next eight months.
Waters Wrap: Would DLT really have prevented Archegos? (And thoughts on Itiviti)
While Christopher Giancarlo says distributed ledger technology could’ve helped prime brokers better monitor their risk exposures to Archegos Capital Management, Anthony (and others) are not so sure about that. He also looks at the Broadridge-Itiviti deal.