The People Who Run Finance Want Decentralised Finance

Dateline: Woking, 15th April 2023.The CEO of Blackrock, Larry Fink, recently said that tokenisation will be “the next generation for markets”. If you think of tokens as Bitcoin or as pictures of chimpanzees with sunglasses on, you probably think that the man who runs the biggest asset management company (with $7 trillion under management) is out on a limb. But if you think of tokens as digital assets that can be traded via protocols, you may well agree with me that his view is an accurate, credible and inevitable.It may sound hyperbolic, but the future will be tokenised.ShareLove or Money?Mr. Fink’s perspective is not, I am sure, born from a love of West Coast pseudo-libertarianism or a desire to smash the state and return society to primal state of warlords and peasants. Quite the contrary, in fact. His view of a new kind of financial market infrastructure of fungible and non-fungible tokens that are exchanged through decentralised financial services will provide “instantaneous settlement” and “reduced fees”. Token are bearer instruments. The token for $100 or for a seat at a Rangers game is either in my wallet, in which case it is mine, or it is your wallet, in which case it is yours. When a token goes from my wallet to your wallet it is now yours. There is no clearing or settlement, no reconciliation and no question of authenticity.Subscribe nowThe idea that tokens are central to the future of finance is not new to other serious players who…The People Who Run Finance Want Decentralised Finance