LSE Group Draws Up Plans for Blockchain-based Digital Assets Business (ft.com) 20
The London Stock Exchange Group has drawn up plans for a new digital markets business, saying this will make it the first major exchange to offer extensive trading of traditional financial assets on the blockchain technology best known for powering cryptocurrency. From a report: Murray Roos, head of capital's markets at the LSE Group, told the Financial Times that the company had been examining the potential for a blockchain-powered trading venue for about a year, and had reached an "inflection point" where it had decided to take the plans forward. It has asked Julia Hoggett, head of the London Stock Exchange, one unit in the broader group, to spearhead the project.
Roos stressed that his exchange was "definitely not building anything around cryptoassets" but was looking to use the technology that underpins popular tokens such as bitcoin to improve the efficiency of buying, selling and holding traditional assets. "The idea is to use digital technology to make a process that is slicker, smoother, cheaper and more transparent and to have it regulated," Roos said. He added that LSEG had waited to proceed until it was sure that the public blockchain technology was "good enough" and that investors were ready.
Roos stressed that his exchange was "definitely not building anything around cryptoassets" but was looking to use the technology that underpins popular tokens such as bitcoin to improve the efficiency of buying, selling and holding traditional assets. "The idea is to use digital technology to make a process that is slicker, smoother, cheaper and more transparent and to have it regulated," Roos said. He added that LSEG had waited to proceed until it was sure that the public blockchain technology was "good enough" and that investors were ready.
Just give me your money (Score:2)
Wait, that won't work... "Give me your money because BLOCKCHAIN!"
Already been tried and failed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Already been tried and failed (Score:3, Funny)
Re: Already been tried and failed (Score:4, Insightful)
Takes a special kind of stupid to be announcing in 2023 that blockchain is efficient or the answer to anything.
Re: (Score:2)
If you are in a position to make business decisions about it, it's taken a special kind of stupid since day one, unless you were looking at the profit potential of providing hardware and intermediary services to the special kind of stupid.
Finally! (Score:1)
Rich men and their money can now be parted *safely*.
Unicorn farts (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
> Why do they think blockchain buys them anything ...because the LSE has seen a gradual decline in the number of listed companies over the last few decades (not helped at all by Brexit I don't suppose). Exchanges (as a general rule) don't really make a lot of money, and what they do make depends on how "popular" they are - the LSE just ain't popular.
They've tried to diversify somewhat, by integrating AIM into their "mix". It's a sub-exchange with easier rules for getting listed, and could just be called
Anonymous trustee system (Score:3)
Unfortunately, the people who have to live & work in the host countries where secret trusts make up a large percentage of the economy end up impoverished through a process known as financialisation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] It's a major cause of wealth inequality, cost of living crises, & political corruption.
Now imagine all that with the instability of trading digital assets on a similar scale. It might just be time to eat the rich.
Why not like this? (Score:3)
Someone help me understand why the /. comments are hating on this idea.
This is a fantastic idea for proof of ownership, chain of custody, and a number of other things. As it stands, paper and digital records can be (and often are) fraudulent. This would prevent that.
Or here's another scenario: I have a vehicle I simply can't get title for. No state will give me title, despite me possessing the vehicle for the past decade, no criminal/theft history, and so on. The prior registered/titled owner is deceased some 30 years.
Having a digital registrar based on the blockchain would mitigate this problem going forward.
Because it's all BS and corpses are everywhere (Score:4, Interesting)
Blockchains were just a hype for investors to invest in a 'ledger of everything'.
Any idea how many stocks are traded per day?
Over a million times per day.
The reality is that most public blockchain can't handle such volumes and it becomes very costly.
Private blockchains are just a joke and give no additional security over storing records in a normal database.
In most application blockchain technologies don't serve any purpose other than for the sake of using it so an investor can give you more money.
Re: (Score:2)
How would blockchain help ? Presumably the transfer of the title you speak of was never properly recorded, Failure to record things on the blockchain is similarly useless.
Or are you saying that the transfer was recorded and the records lost ? I'm pretty sure auto titles have been stored in computers for more than a decade, or is your contention that ordinary computers don't work or can't be checked ?
Re: (Score:3)
Blockchain tech is the LEAST efficient way to do all of that though. It brings nothing to the table in all of those cases, because we are talking about things that need to be private. Your private blockchain is no more secure than a private database, after all. The only thing blockchain is good for is systems where there is insufficient trust, so you build trust through consensus. So, who are we getting consensus from in the cases you mention? We can't allow the blockchain to be public (violates privacy/law
Re: (Score:2)
"why the /. comments are hating on this idea"
The problems presented in the scenarios do not align with problems that can be solved by a blockchain.
A blockchain is useful when there is not central trusted authoritative store of transactions. For the LSE's case the LSE itself is the central trusted authoritative store. If you did not trust the LSE, you would not be trading instruments on the LSE in the first place.
For your digital records scenario, you are just asking for better recordkeeping. You have presen
Bit late to the party right? (Score:2)
We're all doing crypto and AI now so why bother joining the party with a technology from a decade ago?
They must not know (Score:2)