Forget crypto, the big blockchain opportunity is real world assets
For the financial mainstream, crypto is a parallel universe. But they see massive opportunity in bringing blockchain and tokenisation to real world markets.
Call it Financial System 3. Or asset tokenisation. Or even atomic settlement. Just don’t talk about crypto.
Australia is among the leading countries moving towards a new, blockchain-based financial system, which those involved with — including central banks — believe heralds a shift as profound as the movement from an analogue to digital financial system in the 80s and 90s.
That period saw chalkboards, paper share certificates, cheques and lots of manual intervention replaced by electronic trading, digital securities and automated trading in the shift from Financial System 1 to 2. Now 3 is coming.
Even conservative estimates of the benefits from this new system suggest real-time trading, much greater payment efficiency and much lower capital costs — due to lower risk — could save tens of billions of dollars annually.
