Financial markets are undergoing a long-awaited overhaul. When distributed ledger technology first surfaced, many at the intersection of technology and finance heralded it as the rails on which the markets of the future would run. It has taken many years, and many experiments in both the public and private sector, but at last, a coherent picture of what such a market would look like is emerging: a multi-asset settlement platform, enabling the exchange of tokenised versions of assets and cash free from settlement risk.

Though enticing, it will require a colossal amount of work to deliver – not just technically, but from a governance standpoint. Change must come incrementally, and with each step being individually justified from an operational and business perspective. This can only be achieved if the work to improve financial markets is grounded in a thorough understanding of the issues that market participants face at present.

To explore this, OMFIF is conducting an extensive survey of market participants, examining the challenges they face with market infrastructure and their opinions on which solutions hold promise in improving capital market performance. The Digital assets 2024 report will feature valuable thought leadership, both from OMFIF experts and partners in the public and private sector, charting the journey from our present infrastructure to a more efficient capital market. It will explore:

The report will explore:
• Which asset classes will be tokenised
• Where tokenised cash will come from – central banks? Commercial banks? A stablecoin provider?
• How the roles of financial market infrastructure providers will change with DLT
• Whether regulators should re-examine the oversight of digital asset custodians