Where Finance Finds Its Future

On 13 February 2025 BX Digital hosted a virtual seminar that addressed the question: “Token markets need liquidity: Where will they get it from?” The importance of the topic is obvious. A market in which assets can be bought and sold quickly without moving the price is bound to grow more quickly than one in which assets can be bought and sold slowly, if at all, and only by moving the price in an adverse direction. By this criterion, the cryptocurrency markets, let alone the tokenised asset markets, lack sufficient liquidity.The conventional solution is to attract more issuers and investors. Unfortunately, it is fallacious. The experience of traditional markets shows that liquidity is not generated sufficiently by buyers and sellers alone. Furthermore, liquidity must be manufactured by market-makers, lead brokers, securities dealers, inter-broker dealers, exchanges and trading venues, banks, investment banks, and principal and high frequency trading firms. Yet blockchain was invented precisely to get rid of intermediaries such as these. So the purpose of the discussion hosted by BX Digital was to test whether blockchain-based finance can indeed scale without intermediaries, whether tokenisation can make the generation of liquidity more efficient and what exchanges can do to encourage the growth of liquidity.The seminar, held in conjunction with Future of Finance, attracted 116 registrants. They heard Lidia Kurt, CEO of BX Digital, Michael J. Cyrus, Head of Short-Term Products, Equity Finance & FX at DekaBank, Mike Reed, Head of Partnership Development for Digital Assets at Franklin Templeton, Jasmine Burgess, Chief Risk Officer at Coinbase Asset Management, and Lloyd Wahed, Founder and CEO at Members Capital Management, discuss the question from a variety of angles. The registrants contributed to the discussion by completing an on-line poll. 

A Future of Finance interview with Ciarán McGonagle, Chief Legal & Product Officer at Tokenovate.Tokenovate delivers post-trade automation for derivatives and securities finance trades. Chief Legal and Product Officer Ciarán McGonagle speaks to Future of Finance’s Bob Currie about how the company is applying blockchain and smart contract technology to build a financial ecosystem that is automated, resilient and efficient.Representing a financial product as a bundle of rights and obligations governed by conditional logic, McGonagle reflects on the flexibility offered by smart contracts in managing the cash flows, transfers of ownership and other lifecycle events associated with these contracts. He explains how Tokenovate’s unused transaction output (UTXO)-based model shapes the legal remedies available to asset owners in case of legal dispute or misappropriation – and how this may differ from other flavours of blockchain.Drawing on his previous experience working at ISDA, McGonagle discusses how Tokenovate is applying the common domain model (CDM) to translate standard representation of key trade terms into real-world systems and workflows. In closing, he reflects on how the company is contributing to public policy formation and potential outcomes from its representations in Washington and Brussels, its work with financial regulators and its participation at New York Climate Week.

On 4 December 2024 Future of Finance hosted a one-day event at the offices of AON in London. Entitled Digital asset custody: What do asset managers and asset owners need to know about digital asset custody and custodians?, the event attracted 160 registrants from asset managers, banks, custodian banks, digital asset custodians, exchanges, financial market infrastructures, insurers, investment consultants, law firms, regulators and technology vendors. This is an account of what they and the panellists contributed to the seven sessions that day, both live and in the multiple-choice questionnaire they completed in advance, the results of which are also published here.The panellists for this discussion were Laurent Kssis, Board Member and Strategic Advisor to Issuance.Swiss AG; Philip Rage, Director of Strategic Initiatives at Soter Insure; Tariq Rasheed, a Partner at Reed Smith; Jeet Singh, Partner and EMEA Blockchain Leader at EY; and, as moderator, Ed Pugh, Development Director, Fintech and Digital Assets, at Aon.

On 4 December 2024 Future of Finance hosted a one-day event at the offices of AON in London. Entitled Digital asset custody: What do asset managers and asset owners need to know about digital asset custody and custodians?, the event attracted 160 registrants from asset managers, banks, custodian banks, digital asset custodians, exchanges, financial market infrastructures, insurers, investment consultants, law firms, regulators and technology vendors. This is an account of what they and the panellists contributed to the seven sessions that day, both live and in the multiple-choice questionnaire they completed in advance, the results of which are also published here.The panellists for this discussion were Glenn Morgan, Senior Vice President and Digital Asset Practice Leader at Aon; Anya Nova, Director of Sales, Europe at GK8 Custody; Donald Brouwer, Vice President of Business Development at Dfns; and Tom Pikett, Director and Digital Assets Product Manager at BNY.

On 4 December 2024 Future of Finance hosted a one-day event at the offices of AON in London. Entitled Digital asset custody: What do asset managers and asset owners need to know about digital asset custody and custodians?, the event attracted 160 registrants from asset managers, banks, custodian banks, digital asset custodians, exchanges, financial market infrastructures, insurers, investment consultants, law firms, regulators and technology vendors. This is an account of what they and the panellists contributed to the seven sessions that day, both live and in the multiple-choice questionnaire they completed in advance, the results of which are also published here.The panellists for this discussion were James Pollock, EMEA Sales Director at Digital Asset; Kara Kennedy, Head of Digital Asset Product at J.P. Morgan Securities Services; Jürgen Hofbauer, Global Head of Strategic Partnerships at Taurus SA; Adam Groom, Head of Revenue and Exchanges EMEA at Copper; Thilo Derenbach, Head of Sales and Business Development, Digital Securities Services, at Clearstream; and, as moderator, Monica Summerville, Head of Capital Markets Technology Research at Celent.

On 4 December 2024 Future of Finance hosted a one-day event at the offices of AON in London. Entitled Digital asset custody: What do asset managers and asset owners need to know about digital asset custody and custodians?, the event attracted 160 registrants from asset managers, banks, custodian banks, digital asset custodians, exchanges, financial market infrastructures, insurers, investment consultants, law firms, regulators and technology vendors. This is an account of what they and the panellists contributed to the seven sessions that day, both live and in the multiple-choice questionnaire they completed in advance, the results of which are also published here.The panellists for this discussion were John Siena, Associate General Counsel and Co-Head of Regulatory Strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH); Monica Gogna, Partner and Head of the Financial Institutions Law Group at EY; Romin Dabir, partner at Reed Smith; and Yvonne Deane Harte, Director for Secondary Markets and Post Trade policy at UK Finance.