Adena Friedman, Nasdaq CEO, said cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology hold lot of promise for the future of the finance, though it remains to be seen which all digital currencies will survive the last mile.
“I do think the idea of a more globalized payment mechanism that is more efficient than what we have today allows for money to transfer across countries and certainly supports the Internet economy,” she said.
Digital currency is likely to play a major role in the economy in future, Friedman told CNN’s Poppy Harlow in the Boss Files series. She believes cryptocurrency is the “right next step in the space of currency.”
The major issue with cryptocurrencies is that they are not regulated like regular cash, the Nasdaq CEO said. Regarding the blockchain, which is the distributed ledger technology that underlies Bitcoin, the first uses of this would be in less regulated markets, less efficient, more bespoke markets, she opined.
“Test it out, show that it works, demonstrate its efficiency in the Nasdaq private market or in the fund industry,” she said.
Late April, Friedman said on CNBC’s Squawk Show that Nasdaq was open to becoming a cryptocurrency exchange over time as the regulation smoothens and the crypto space gets matured.
Nasdaq recently entered into crypto market with a recent technology collaboration with cryptocurrency exchange Gemini Trust Co., founded by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.
“There are a lot of exciting things in the machine intelligence space. There are a lot of exciting things in the trading space,” Friedman said.
“In the post-trade area, if we can make the system more efficient by shortening settlement cycles, it [blockchain] takes a lot of risk out of the system and therefore it makes it so that the banks don’t have to be as capital intensive. And that’s a big incentive.”
by Jyotsna V
Source
RSS