On the 26 November ISLA welcomed over 70 market participants join us on the 30th floor of Clifford Chance’s Canary Wharf offices, for a deep dive into digital assets & developments in equity finance.
J.P.Morgan set the tone with three core themes that resonated throughout the evening:
- Efficiency and collateral mobility
- Interoperability and scaling models
- Regulation in response to innovation
Our delegates were walked through the fundamentals in a Digital Assets 101. And while the influx of new blockchains entering the market brings with it fragmentation and interoperability hurdles, there are real solutions starting to emerge that connect market participants in a very granular way, providing an information exchange on blockchain rails.
Our fireside chat reflected that this new digital frontier simply allows market participants to execute the same trades they could already do today, just faster, with more specificity and always on time.
Competitive advantage is found through utilising an “AND” strategy – multiple types of digital assets, utilising and complimenting existing structures, providing the variety needed to ensure that capital markets can get wider and deeper, offering more opportunities for economic growth.
A recent change in regulatory stance in the US, notably accelerated by Trump’s re-election has ignited a shift in the industry from interest to real appetite. Which has massively increased adoption of digital assets, with extended hours 24/7 trading being seen as a huge use-case.
However, we can’t throw caution to the wind… there is still an incredible amount of work to be done from a legal and risk perspective before this can become an industry-wide reality.
Thank you to J.P. Morgan and Clifford Chance for their support and partnership in closing the year by hosting another fantastic ISLA Connects Educational Briefing.
