Blockchain's revival is being driven by financial institutions that are tokenizing assets, launching stablecoins and pursuing 24/7 markets. | Bloomberg
Aug 5, 2026
Ten years ago, Australia’s main stock exchange decided its future lay in a radical shift to clearing and settling share trades using the blockchain. The idea was to exploit the useful bits of crypto technology, while steering clear of all the speculative mania around digital money. But it ended up just like Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse: costly, slow to implement and eventually shelved.
Today’s environment makes the Aussies look positively timid. Wall Street powerhouses such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. are converting financial securities into digital tokens; the London Stock Exchange is trying to keep up with crypto rivals by offering nonstop 24-hour trading; and credit-card giant Visa is part of a large group of financial firms launching a stablecoin, so-called because it’s backed by the dollar. Is blockchain, the tech that underpins all this, back to being the future?
It’s not just the usual hype merchants saying this time is different for the grownup use of distributed ledgers, the decentralized digital system that lets people use crypto tokens as a means of exchange. The former head of France’s securities regulator, Robert Ophele, tells me that tokenization is here to stay. The technology is no longer immature, he says, while Donald Trump’s U.S. administration has put its weight behind it and serious financial institutions are throwing nonvirtual cash at it.
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