We all want a non-fragmented solution, but the utopian version of a single blockchain to rule them all is undesirable and impractical.
When asked to explain this space, I often ask people to forget pretty much everything you've heard about blockchains, crypto-currencies, and bitcoin, and instead dumb it down a lot and think about something no more complex or intimidating than good old-fashioned database technology.
I would describe Hyperledger as a tremendous opportunity for collaboration for firms that range from gigantic commercial concerns all the way to the smallest, newest startups. It's a community of great intellectual depth and great commercial breadth, and as such, I think the opportunity to be part of that is a unique and enriching experience.
If you exclude your talent base from the benefits of hiring and deploying and making women successful, you're going to do less well than businesses that do a better job on that front.
The platforms that are big, global, diversified, and both financial and physically enabled are competitively much better positioned than those which are not.
It was amazing feeling to be able to be involved in invention, but not just invention - the creating of a marketplace that had real value to add.
Unfortunately, tools that transfer risk can also increase systemic risk if major counterparties fail to manage their own risk exposures properly.
I've always been motivated to innovate where the implications are significant.
With private chains, you can have a completely known universe of transaction processors. That appeals to financial institutions that are wary of the bitcoin blockchain.
Distributed ledger technology is fashionable. In fact, if you could wear it, you'd put Ralph Lauren out of business, at least in my case.
The thing about innovation in financial markets is they're always building on what has come before. It's a natural process.
You have to abide by the regulations that the regulators insist on. This is not a philosophical divide - it's a fact of life.
The credit derivative market would never have evolved but for the preexistence of the derivative markets because so much of the technology was borrowed.
A credit derivative, at its core, is actually a very simple concept... The simplest way to think of a credit derivative is it is analogous to insurance against the risk of a credit default by your counterparty, your business counterpart.
It is noticeable how many times you see a panel at a conference made up of all men or look into the audience and see very few women, whether it is an event focused on technology or business.
In financial services, the front end of the world operates at super-high speeds: comparative advantages are measured in fractions of nanoseconds. And yet back end processes - the amount of time you have to wait when you sell a stock before cash hits your account - can take days.
Our view is that sensitive, contractual, market-moving, private data should be kept private.
The blockchain is the financial challenge of our time. It is going to change the way that our financial world operates.
The Hyperledger Project is gaining traction on a daily basis, displaying how vital this effort is in advancing distributed ledger technology. Uniting the industry to drive this initiative forward is paramount to the success of distributed ledger technology.
Blockchain technology represents a generational opportunity to mutualize database infrastructure across entities within financial services. What that translates into is an enormous cost-saving, risk-reducing, and capital-enhancing opportunity.
