Wall Street is seriously getting into turning blockchain tests into real money-making products. Big names like JPMorgan and WisdomTree are in on this game, pushing what they’ve learned from Project Guardian.
Turning Tests into Products
Stephanie Lok from JPMorgan’s blockchain group Onyx says it’s all about making those pilot programs into something you can actually use. Speaking at TokenizeThis in Miami, she got into how JPMorgan, with the Monetary Authority of Singapore, is all over investment fund tokenization. “We want to see how we can take it forward. Investment fund tokenization is where we’re really focusing a lot of our time,” Lok stated. This isn’t just small-time stuff; they’re talking big league plans to bring their blockchain dreams to life.
WisdomTree isn’t sitting this out either. Maredith Hannon, their head of business development, talked about how they’re diving into blending investment portfolios with everyday bank accounts. Imagine changing up your investment plans as easily as you check your bank balance. Hannon is hyped about the possibilities, “Think about if you could do 10,001 different variations of different types of allocations, different types of risk profiles.”
Not stopping there, WisdomTree is also working on bringing different financial services under one digital roof. This means you could manage your investments and your bank stuff all in one spot, and even better, make it grow faster than your regular bank account. “It’s just enabling those to be on-chain. Deliver that end value of being able to use your money more effectively,” Hannon explained.
New Financial Horizons
The whole thing about Project Guardian is to see if DeFi and tokenizing assets can really mix with big money dealings. This project got started in May 2022 and has big names like JPMorgan, DBS Bank, SBI Digital Asset Holdings, and WisdomTree working together. They’re trying to build something where everyone can play along, whether you’re a big bank or a newbie.
Tokenization could mean paying for dinner with shares from your investment fund. Rob Durscki from the Stellar Development Foundation thinks this is where things are headed. He shared this at the same Miami event, “What we’re seeing now with partners like Franklin Templeton, WisdomTree, and others issuing this new round of assets on-chain is that they want to unlock yield, but they also want to make it almost seamless to use as a payment tool as well.”
This idea could shake up how we think about money and investing. You could literally pay for a meal using bits of your investment, and at the same time, that investment keeps growing money. “Nothing prevents us here from splitting the check on the dinner, and I’ll pay with Franklin Templeton funds because I can send you $20 in 3.6 seconds on Stellar. If you forget about that, you’re still getting 5%, 6% a year on that dinner. This is a positive blur between investment and payment because it’s ultimately value, right? And we’re unlocking the movement of value,” Durscki pointed out.
And it’s not just about cool new tech. Ripple’s VP of engineering, Bradley Chase, says it’s also about giving businesses what they want. More and more are asking to handle stablecoin payments and keep tokens on-chain to make extra cash. “Those customers now have their own customers that want to pay in stablecoins and they want to hold those stablecoins. So that’s kind of the simplest on and off-ramp gateway for them into the space,” said Chase.
So yeah, Wall Street is betting big on blockchain, and from the looks of it, they’re just getting started.