Digital assets: a long-awaited revolution

17 September 2024

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

Download 2024 report

Speakers

Emmanuelle Assouan

Director General, Financial Stability, Banque de France

Lewis McLellan

Editor

OMFIF

Lewis is Editor of the Digital Monetary Institute. He is responsible for content, including reports, podcasts and commentaries.

Before joining OMFIF, he spent six years at GlobalCapital, a capital markets newspaper and part of Euromoney Institutional Investor. There, he covered debt capital markets, breaking news and developing themes in public sector bond markets, emerging markets, ESG and digitalisation. He formed relationships with senior bankers and key borrowers.

He holds an MA in Linguistics from the University of Edinburgh.

Johannes Duong

Treasurer, Oesterreichische Nationalbank

Katie-Ann Wilson

Managing Director, Digital Monetary Institute

OMFIF

Katie-Ann Wilson is Managing Director, Digital Monetary Institute at OMFIF. She is responsible for leading and managing the team to deliver the institute’s overall business objectives through a pipeline of publications and events. Katie-Ann develops the editorial scope across these projects and supports senior engagement with central banks, regulators, financial services, and technology providers. She also contributes to the corporate leadership of the entire business.

Prior to joining OMFIF, she worked at King’s College London, supporting the social science and public policy faculty on research submissions to higher education funding bodies. Before this, she worked as a grant writer for a non-governmental organisation in Israel.

Katie-Ann holds an MA in International Political Economy (distinction) from King’s College London and a BA (Hons) in International Relations from the University of Leeds.

Akinchan Jain

Head, Asset and Liability Operations, Treasury

World Bank Group

Candace Kelly

Chief Legal Officer, Stellar Development Foundation

Candace Kelly is chief legal officer for the Stellar Development Foundation. She leads the team responsible for SDF’s legal affairs and the policy team that is focused on bridging the gap between the public and private sectors. Previously, she worked for Uber Technologies where she helped navigate the company’s response to regulatory investigations and advised on safety, security, privacy, consumer protection and law enforcement response. Prior to that, she served for 17 years at the US Department of Justice.

Katerina Liu

Research analyst

OMFIF

Katerina Liu is a Research Analyst at OMFIF. She is responsible for supporting qualitative and quantitative research for OMFIF’s reports and publications across its five institutes.

Prior to OMFIF, she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kyrgyzstan where she provided capacity building and development assistance for English teaching at a local school in the Toktogul region.

She holds an MA in Governance, Development and Public Policy from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex and a BA in International Relations from Boston University. She is fluent in Spanish.

Partners

Partner with us

As regulators catch up to the nuances of the new asset class, financial institutions’ experiments with digital asset technology are beginning to yield results – promising a newer and more efficient transaction medium for financial markets.

Our team of researchers at OMFIF have identified four pivotal pillars that require careful consideration over the coming months: the digitalisation of traditional finance, digital assets for sustainability, thriving in winter and spring cleaning the crypto market.

OMFIF’s readership spans policy-makers, supranational institutions, 129 central banks and 10,000+ subscribers across the private and public sector. By partnering with the Digital Monetary Institute for this report on digital assets, your organisation will be showcased as a leader in building and protecting the markets of the future.

For partnership enquiries please contact Folusho Olutosin at [email protected].

Contact Folusho Olutosin to talk about your partnership opportunity

[email protected]

About DMI

The DMI was founded to meet the needs of central banks in understanding the emerging digital economy. Today the DMI is the leading convenor between the public and private sector on digital currencies and the future of capital markets.

We provide a trusted platform for our global community of central banks, multinational financial services, payment service providers, commercial banks and technology providers to shape the dialogue on the future of money. Driven by central banks, the DMI is the go-to place for policy discussions on central bank digital currencies and all related issues.

17 September 2024