Top established banking firms including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citigroup, BNP Paribas and Credit Suisse completed a six-month trial of blockchain in the $2.8 trillion equity swaps market. The test was deemed a success.
According to a Bloomberg report, the trial program kept track of the swaps contracts after they were executed, recording things like amendments or termination of the deals, stock splits and dividends. It was managed by blockchain startup Axoni's AxCore blockchain software and achieved a "100 percent success rate."
AxCore uses smart contracts, used by the Ethereum network, with various optimizations.
“It looks and feels a lot like ethereum, but with a lot of differences,” such as changes to enhance scalability, privacy and security, Axoni Chief Executive Officer Greg Schvey said.
Schvey was confident the trial is a prelude to greater blockchain adoption in Wall Street. “We’re on a path to take this forward,” he said adding that “We know the thing works now.”
Note that Axoni's software was running in a test environment with no real trades being processed.
The plan is that current systems like Fedwire or Swift will be used if the program goes live, Schvey said. But he could not say if and when blockchain for the equity swaps market will be done for real.