Digital Assets & Institutional Market Structure | Boston Blockchain Week 2026

All right, is everyone energized from the last panel? Ready to talk about some fun infrastructure? Um, this is actually the second version of this panel. Um, we were fortunate, the group of us, to be at the fix event and the conversation went so well, we're redoing the conversation. So luckily I'm expecting a well-healed blockchain group here.

But I hope um any questions if something comes up please raise your hand. I really welcome the input. It made our last panel uh a lot more fun. So I'll go ahead and let everyone introduce themselves and I'll come back to me and start off. Thanks.

Hi everybody. I'm Ada Kokoshi. I work for Chainlink Labs as a senior account executive and I cover banking and capital markets firms who are moving to a digital asset infrastructure whether they're supporting the issuance side or the asset servicing and uh transaction processing side. Previous to chain link I was at DTCC digital assets stage street and a firm called currency. So uh I've been in the institutional space for quite a few years.

Hey everybody, I'm Jeremy with Gate Ventures. We are the investment arm of Gate.com. We're one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world with 60 million users um and you know investing in early stage with growth and M&A as well.

Hi uh Lee Sab here. Um you know first of all I just want to thank uh Ian Kaine and Cubic Labs for putting this on. It's a great event. Keeps Boston relevant in all of blockchain and AI. So you know kudos to uh to Ian and his team.

Um again, Lee Saba, I head up market structure for Alto Markets. We're a broker dealer in the private market space. Uh we have a broker dealer, alternative trading system, and a sister transfer agent. Um you know, one of the interesting things about Realto is uh back in 2020, um our ATS was approved for blockchain based instruments. Um obviously the climate wasn't quite ready for blockchain based instruments on a regulated stance, but um a lot of things are changing in that uh regard.

Uh I also wear an industry hat. So um I I co-chair the FIX trading community. Uh and uh I don't know if folks in this room are familiar with FIX. It's short for the financial information exchange protocol. And that is uh the deacto language of trading um on an institutional grade uh perspective.

So uh we are leaning very heavily into digital assets right now. Uh we have been for some time, but this year uh and we'll get into it, I think. Um we're we're really going to crack that. Uh and you know we've got some interesting folks from Cubic Labs in part of their startups uh from the like the ones and zeros blockchain engineers uh you know sort of married to our most uh technical global global tech folks that design fix trading for pre-trade trade and post trade. So there's going to be some really interesting things coming out of here soon.

Thanks Lee. So again Karen Knox I'm with Hen and I also am on the board of the Boston Blockchain Association. So, it really is lovely to be a part of Boston Blockchain Week. So, thanks again, Ian. Um, first off, digital assets, is it solving problems?

Are we creating a new infrastructure for the financial system? What do you think?

I I I could start. you you know I I think digital assets uh and you know the blockchain DT infrastructures are are are super interesting and I do think it is the next generation of our plumbing um where where I see it right now is really streamlining you know operational efficiencies uh you know a trade is still a trade a security is still a security um especially if it's in the regulated market space um but where blockchain comes in is it compresses if it takes 15 sort of uh I guess um unique transaction points to to start and finish a trade. You might be able to compress it down to five or six uh compression points using you know blockchain instruments. So I at this juncture I really feel that it's it's a um uh you know sort of a streamlining um you know utility. But there's so many aspects of this.

I think as everybody knows you've got tokenization of regulated assets, you've got pure crypto, you've got stable coins that we heard the circle folks talking about this. I mean there's there's so many threads within this that um you know we we need to pull it all together in in a regulated fashion.

Uh for me I I think you know with established markets US London Singapore etc. Um, it's really the high volume businesses that that make sense to adopt this technology, right? When you're saving five bips, you really need significant volume to to have those incentives to adopt, whether that's in repo markets, FX, um, bond markets, etc. Uh, but, you know, when it comes to to retail products, I think it's much more suited towards global emerging markets where it's hard to get dollars, it's hard to get US equities. um those are extremely innovative products that are you know brand new to the market.

Yeah, I totally agree with both um the gentleman's before me. So I think it's a combo of both, right? Operational efficiencies really need an upgrade and I I used I started my career at Straight in the back office where we I would run operations on funds every day, right? And there were times when I would look at those books and records and see that certain trades would take three days to settle or there would be multiple reconciliation failures on transactions because maybe a broker code uh was entered wrong or rather there was a decimal point that didn't match what the previous broker had sent uh to the file. Right?

So the when we talk about operational efficiencies, it is really minuscule day-to-day processes that can cause big in like uh inflammatory problems in at a global scale. Now we have firms in the asset servicing space that like focus and regulated firms furthermore that like focus on making sure that none of these reconciliation breaks or operational failures or even the resiliency of the infrastructure is kept up to date so that we the financial services uh serve the market appropriately but there's always room for improvement right and the promise of blockchain is that by having a everything at a shared infrastructure shared ledger where transactions don't in fact need to reconcile the details between one another but rather those details are embedded into the transaction itself. So that's the first point and B it's the power of smart contracts which is the ability to encode these transaction details into a given um given transaction in itself that really make this powerful. So these are the operational efficiencies that you know are very tangible right now. And then what that creates is it opens up time and money and resources to then explore where else you can take that asset or that transaction that might be multi-jurisdictional or it might be a new asset type that is accessible by other uh by a new set of investors that previously didn't have um didn't have access to that asset type because of the control measures in place couldn't afford that opportunity.

So I I think it's both. I um it's not it's an innovation that happens throughout the life cycle throughout the workflow of a transaction. So it's at the in infrastructure level and the revenue generated level.

So I was going to ask like what pain points do you think are addressed? But we're we're on a positive note and I want to lean into that. on our last um on our last panel that we talked about there was most of the Q&A I felt like were the concerns and we were talking to Tradfi traders um but a lot of them again I think you agree like they were so concerned or what are the ramifications if we're expediting our transactions oh my god what if we have the zeros wrong what does that look like and what will happen instead of thinking like when we're talking about smart contracts, all the all the mechanisms within blockchain technology within DTS that actually derisks the business and derisk that architecture. So, I know you and I spoke about that last week.

Yeah, absolutely. So, new technology introduces new risk. Um and one of the things that I there's a lot of groups in the industry that are looking at it now is how do you price that risk into a the asset itself the price and how do you ensure as an organization that you have the right risk controls and measures in place in order to avoid any bad faulty situations right um so I think from my pers my personal perspective my personal work we look very closely so chain link is an oracle service right so we put offchain data, we put that on chain and then we allow the ability to move data across multiple chains. Um, so we operate a business that's focused on bridging uh technology. Most of the hacks happen at the bridging level when you're moving uh transactions or assets from one chain to the other and thankfully chain link has never been hacked.

Um so but the reason why they haven't been hacked and I had to like study this very much at the core I'm not a technologist but I had to spend a lot of time to understand the infrastructure behind it. The the way that you know uh transactions across chain but even transaction or like data that moves from offchain to the onchain is fortified. It's fortified via the different uh attack vectors that an infrastructure engineer um and the the risk team need to really evaluate to see where that vector might come in. And that in that assumes that you're um studying or rather you're analyzing the entire transaction flow. All the parties that need to be part of that transaction flow as well as where might there be any signing of transactions or um any bad actor that might come in even at like the the cloud infrastructure level to be able to preserve um to be be able to preserve that transaction or to be able to preserve the movement of value across chains.

But now what's happening is um and another example, this is more on the traditional side. Uh many of you might pro are probably familiar with the efforts that DTCC is doing, which is they're offering their member firms the ability to convert their um assets under custody at DTCC into token form so that they can take those assets and move them across um downstream so that they can operate those assets on chain. A lot uh work is going is going into understanding the risks and again the attack vectors that each party bears the responsibility of for when a member firm calls and um requests a conversion order and then who manages or has oversight and whitelist or allow list those wallets that will have access to these assets. So this whole concept of risk which I think is a sign of maturity for the market too right this whole concept of risk and pricing risk and like managing risk is a new area that the industry is focusing on which makes it exciting because it's again it's a sign of maturity

as an insurance broker if I can get other people to talk about the value of risk management that's a win for me. Um, but I think that absolutely goes into play, Jeremy, when you're looking at the opportunity with investments. How does the idea of of startups that are really derisking the ecosystem play in? How are you looking at their stability as well?

I think right now with the market dynamics, there's a a emphasis on distribution um and institutional adoption. Um and a lot of integrations with institutions you know get hung up in proper compliance and security audits etc. Um certainly some US institutions have have leaned into this technology. Um but if you run the game theory you know tether is a top 10 treasury buyer on on trend to be a top three. Um there are a number of sovereign wealth funds selling treasuries for a handful of reasons.

You know, Japan to support their their currency, etc. Um it's not, you know, uh if they'll adopt it, it's just a when, right? There's uh significant staying power of stable coins. Um so building the proper, you know, compliance security stack that allow these institutions to to interface um with with you know, digital dollars. Um I I think it's a you know area we're spending a lot of time on right now.

It's now a standard.

Oh, okay. Um I'm going to put on my Jacqueline Hyde hat here. Um you know, I I'm not so sure it drisks a lot. Um I think it might increase some risk uh in in in certain ways. Uh and and I think you have to think about blockchains as a whole.

They're all different. They're all very unique protocols. They all do things very differently. um and you know which ones are are fit for purpose to trade regulated uh securities or you know regulated assets. Um I'm not sure I think this is this is an open question that the industry needs to to really figure out um you know my work at Rialto we've been focused on this and and seeing which which which chains and which um you know asset uh you know which assets would fit those those chains uh appropriately.

But there are a lot of there's there's a lot of and I was calling this likeium uh you know within the industry about what this can solve. And you know I'm a practitioner of standards uh you know for electronic trading. Uh that's my that's where I cut my teeth. And when you start unpacking what these blockchains are doing, um, they're they're just like if you need to trade IBM, I'm use that old example, and it's it's floating across, you know, seven different blockchains, which one is, you know, which one is right, which one do you use? Which one is using MEV?

Which one isn't? Um, you know, is it does it have deterministic finality or probabilistic finality? um you know if you actually go to the to the you know the legal codes of um you know securities trading you have to have deterministic finality on your trades. Well how do you do that on a probabilistic blockchain? I don't know maybe somebody can tell me in here but um you know we have to think about that uh in a very earnest way and uh you know at the fix organization right now I think I mentioned this you know we are bringing in the very uh ones and zeros folks of blockchains who understand these things uh in a very detailed way across all the different design mechanisms of a blockchain consensus mechanisms and and the like uh and marrying them with the with our you know most technically proficient um electronic trading folks uh that designed the fix protocol and there's a lot that's coming out here um you know that that either you know fix is going to have to change some things I think some blockchains are going to have to change some things if they want to participate in this world and I'll I'll leave it at this um I don't know if anybody's been out to chainspect uh do uh I think it's chainspec.

org or or something like that, but they uh they rank all the the global blockchains out there uh like maybe the top 75 or 100 and it's what's in production and you know combined uh you know the what do you think the transaction volume transactions per second volume across the top 75 blockchains are? Anybody care to take a guess right now in production globally? Well, I'll let you know. it's about 5,000 transactions a second across every single blockchain combined. Um that's not scaling.

Um you know so so we have to understand this and and what that means. Now there's a theoretical version of this that you know every one of them has like oh we can do a million, we can do 10,000 whatever. But if you look at the raw data and what's in production and what's going it's not there. So you know let's let's unpack it. Let's make sure we understand where we're going with it.

Um, and you know, I want to go in a pragmatic way and I know, sorry, that was my hide part of this. But, uh,

no, I think that's that is derisking though. I mean, I think where where digital assets has historically gotten a bad name is when people decided somehow this is an investment miracle and I'm going to make a quick buck. So, I'm going to do some I'm going to get rid of my usual due diligence. I'm going to forget everything I've learned and my procedures at work and all my training and I'm just I'm really going to go in on it. This guy had crypto in his presentation.

So I I think I can get a seven figure check here. Like this is great. And then you what did it do to the industry? And then we have these conversations over and over like still today even admittedly at the la after the last panel where there's something shady associated no matter how much we hear that digital assets is not the favored currency of global criminals. It doesn't matter.

Um so there's a lot to overcome there.

Yeah. You know and I'm coming at it from a regulated asset perspective. Not pure crypto, not you know stuff that's bearer instruments, you know. Um th this is you know instruments that are actually you know have some oversight need a custodian need a transfer agent need to you know pass through um an or regulated entity at multiple levels not not pure crypto um and you know again if we're rewriting the the financial services plumbing of the world let's let's do it right and and let's ask all the tough questions because when markets meltdown and you know I'm old enough to remember you know the flash crashes I'm old enough to remember the you know the financial crisis of the you know early 2000s. Um when when trading deaths start, you know, when markets go south, uh it can be a very serious issue.

And um you know, even if you're 10 or 15 minutes behind, even with the most bilateral, you know, um you know, high-speed super tuned databases, uh you can still get behind for hours and hours and hours in a white hot market. If you're doing uh 25, 50, 100 transactions a second globally, I what how do how do we support that at the end of the day? How do you unwind it? Will it take a week, a month to to see your positions? I I don't know.

I'm just asking questions and I'm sorry. I don't mean to be a downer, but I want to I I want to understand what plumbing we're we're we're engaging and and make sure it's right. I think from a high level, you know, we we take a very uh macro global viewpoint where uh if you look at the history of capital, the history of markets, you know, we are no matter what headed towards a a global market that trades 24/7, 365. Um, and I think crypto exchanges are are a great venue that will combine, you know, New York Stock Exchange with the London Stock Exchange with EU equities, Japan, Korea, etc. Um, a and, you know, not only do we, you know, are the most sophisticated market makers uh, involved in that transition.

um but also a lot of AI trading bots and how do you keep track like like you alluded to you know the the amount of sheer volume that that's going to be uh moving through the system uh rapidly it's you know you need a digital ledger to do that um and I think right now a blockchain is the best solution uh to to solve that problem certainly there there could be additional tech that you know comes out that's a better version of that but how do you trust that ledger right? You distribute it across the globe. So, um, from that perspective, it's like how do we build technology that gets us to that end point if we're headed there anyways?

Spot on. And on the note of like this is a process, this is clearly a big process to have institutional adoption. I one of the things I was curious about like all the partners involved similar to what each of you do in in the ecosystem. Um do you see that companies are going to or yeah I would say going to collaborate further as opposed to vertical integration with acquisitions to streamline services in house and you have I had a bit of this conversation. And I was at the Linux Foundation decentralized trust event um in in London a couple months ago and that was a bit of our conversation is how much do institutions say okay no no I'm going to hire that I'm not going to do that inhouse and that way kind of like if this doesn't go well then I can say okay this wasn't the right partner not that we didn't do it well so I'm curious kind of what your take is as this evolves.

I can um so I think it goes in es and flows. Uh in the at the beginning of the blockchain trend maybe like seven years ago I think a lot of firms especially the large institutional firms were looking to partner like finding innovation pockets in smaller companies that could help them a understand what the technology could do how to do it and then what pilots and PC's that could put in in place. Then there was uh a move away from that because this is where you know like third-party risk management uh started becoming a bit of a an issue because certain firms couldn't pass the high um the high barriers to entry to work with a large financial firm and now what we're seeing I think what we're seeing is now normalization of partner and build and there are certain decisions that the large firms and I'm only speaking like the institutions that I work with, they are the largest being capital market client. So I only know the world from their lenses. There is a desire to to partner um especially for capabilities that they don't a have an interest to get in the business of and b don't really have the subject matter expertise to manage or uh really work with things like that.

you know, from my experience, things like that is uh putting data on chain or uh streaming data off of the blockchain so that they can actually do transactions um in the web 3 or the DeFi ecosystem. Then there's other areas that these large companies have to have in house. Um you know, if you're a custodian, you have to have your own wallet management system and your own transaction signing system. And you may choose to acquire somebody or build it, but it is a function that you have to like have in house because that is the risk that your clients are paying you for, right? Like all these the banks exist because clients want to outsource risk and they're paying them to do so, right?

Um and that you know that also includes borrowing capital, but as a bank you have to then provide that service in a digital asset infrastructure. So we see this convergence of building inhouse and also partnering where necessary. Yeah, I think there are a lot of areas in uh particular texts where you can't solve with code. Um great example of that is, you know, if you build a great FX payment business, you still need a liquidity provider or if you're building a tokenized equity play, you know, at the end of the day, you still need uh great liquidity and marketmaking. Um so, you know, there there are solutions that simply can't be solved um w with code alone.

And you know, you see uh New York Stock Exchange investing in OKX, Citadel partnering with Crypto.com and you know, countless examples where um you know, that is not a blockchain solution. That's you know, liquidity and you need that to to really solve the you know, full set of problems. Yeah, I I think it's, you know, going to follow a pretty, you know, traditional model of, you know, partner and then learn and then potentially acquire. Um, you know, it I think I think that's pretty common practice.

Uh, because a lot of the the the trady institutions just don't have the expertise and and they'll um they'll experiment with it. they'll have their skunk works or DARPA internally and then uh then realize it's a lot and say why don't we partner with somebody and then maybe we just acquire them and roll them in wrap them into the organization. So I I think I think we're going to see a lot of that. Um and it might be the inverse too. It might be you know some of these uh DeFi companies buying the traditional Treadfi companies and you know so which is great.

Awesome. All right. So we're almost at time. So closing remarks, what is the one takeaway that you want everyone to have for today when we're thinking about the impact of digital assets? Um I love the regulatory framework that's starting to evolve.

You know, I I think we've all heard about Clarity, Genius, Red Crypto. Um you know, recently there was a transfer agent um proposal which I think somebody mentioned in an earlier panel. All these things are are very uh good news. Uh you know, so I I'm excited that the that the regulators are taking a very hard look at this and going to propose um and and and they're listening to the industry uh about what needs to happen. So um that that's what I'm excited about.

And I I do think that the we're going to have plumbing for that's going to be on the you know DeFi and and uh Tradfi style for some time, but uh you know they're going to start to converge uh pretty quickly. Yeah, I think financial services across the board, uh, fees are tapering to zero. Um, and there are a lot of market forces that simply can't be stopped that, you know, are going to, uh, allow that to happen. Um, I think we live in a world where, you know, 2, three years down the road, um, we're going to have US dollar denominated financial products for, um, the entire globe.

Yeah. Um in addition to the points raised, the other thing that I'm really excited about which there's a lot of work happening right now in this industry is the concept of digital identity and managing identity on chain. Um you know part of the reason why many of us are sort of loyal to one bank or one credit card provider and or you know one broker maybe it's because the on boarding you know there's a an onboarding process that you have to go through and then get validated and once you're in that ecosystem you feel comfortable with it right in the digital asset space that kind of concept sort of like it doesn't go away but it doesn't become what happens is you have to be participating in many networks so you so that you can leverage you know the the liquidity and you can leverage the efficiencies that you gain from the different DTS and the web3 ecosystem providers but the one uh again barrier to entry is the concept of identity right um and having your wallet that is AML KYC and then able to interact on demand with assets that are available in these networks today in the DeFi ecosystem that's not much of a problem because you know DeFi operates a little bit uh like less less regulated I should say right but if we want to get into the space where regulated assets are now on chain and you want to leverage the same efficiencies then digital identity needs to be solved so this is a topic that the industry is uh exploring right now and I'm really excited to see where that goes wonderful so I think the takeaway is continued collaboration which I'm always happy to hear because I think we see there's an incredible opportunity and we all want to participate and realize we can't do it as individuals fantastic Thank you.

Thank you.