區塊鏈如何顛覆金融行業？——對話格雷格·斯維
導語
區塊鏈技術相對傳統金融的實質飛躍是降低來自數據的風險☂️，為市場註入的透明度和可審核性，識別並解決系統性風險👱♀️。
拉至底部，閱讀英文原文
從很多方面來看，區塊鏈最初是一項處於行業邊緣的技術，使人聯想起在火光沖天、離經叛道的“火人節”，服務器農場大量生產比特幣的畫面。不少比特幣的早期使用者和專家將其視為一種跳脫當下霸權的技術👆🏽，對行業帶來顛覆性破壞而非順水推舟的作用🧑🏿👮🏿♀️。比特幣、ICOs等早期的應用意在規避現有的監管，但也正因為此顯出其局限性。
隨著人們對這一技術及其應用的理解越來越深入全面🦽，區塊鏈已經成為金融生態系統建設的一部分，並將金融業和社區聯結在一起💅🏽，而不僅僅服務於傳統金融行業之外的群體🏌️♀️。它為信息共享、自我監管👨🏽🍳、風險監控和投資者保護提供了平臺——這對所有人都有好處💤。
TradeBlock創始人、Axoni創始人兼首席執行官格雷格·斯維（Greg Schvey）是這一使用轉變的早期先驅者之一。在這輪對話中🏥，我們將傾聽他親述自己的歷程和他如何看待金融行業區塊鏈的未來。
區塊鏈發展仍處於早期階段
張純信：自中本聰發明比特幣以來，有哪些關鍵變化加速了區塊鏈在金融行業的應用？您如何描述從最初對區塊鏈感興趣到現在的轉變？
格雷格·斯維🧏♂️：2011年，我的兄弟、聯合創始人傑夫首次向我介紹了比特幣🏷。當時，這個社區僅限於幾個在線留言板的成員。這是一個人數不多但充滿激情的團體，有幾個來自世界各地的傑出人才。今天所有基於區塊鏈技術的基礎設施都起源於一位匿名發明家，隨後在互聯網論壇上得到推廣→，現在大多數人可能都不知道這一點👦。
即使在區塊鏈以外🧃，金融領域也存在著一種更為廣泛🏃♂️、平民化的技術應用趨勢，包括越來越多地使用第三方服務和（或）軟件，這些成本可以由整個行業共同承擔🧑🏼🔧🕺，而不是每家企業自己處理構建和維護一切的開銷、麻煩和風險🕋。通過使用外部軟件供應商，交易公司可以將它們的精力用於生成alpha🤸🏿♀️，而不是像其他人一樣構建相同的系統🍝。這可以說涵蓋了金融機構基礎設施的幾乎每一個部分，從服務器、風控引擎到用戶界面🩰。
然而，經過多次試驗和反復迭代，技術應用最大的影響是區塊鏈在資本市場的實際應用獲得進步👷🏿♀️。每一項新技術都有一個接受曲線，一些有遠見的用戶在早期向前推進👦🏿，其他用戶後期跟上。這些早期使用者往往對暫時的技術缺陷更寬容，對社會驗證的關註更少，而更願意在技術進化中發揮作用🤹。現在🦸🏿♂️，網絡可以立即為終端用戶提供好處，進入的門檻已經大大降低🪰。
張純信：區塊鏈的實際應用情況如何😣？
格雷格·斯維：我們無疑仍處於未來10~20年發展趨勢的早期階段。
張純信♐️：銀行如何看待區塊鏈的應用?
格雷格·斯維🦦：就像對任何一種技術進步一樣🤽🏿♂️，銀行業對此褒貶不一。根據我們的經驗，其中大多數認為企業區塊鏈基礎設施提供了傳統數據庫和網絡系統以外的一個重要替代，但各銀行（或各銀行內的各個群體）對這一觀點的認可程度不一。銀行對有關加密貨幣的討論很感興趣🔠，但由於對各種監管方面的擔憂，它們通常對參與其中采取更保守的態度🔆。我認為🧏♀️，參與基礎設施建設或網絡使用的激勵措施😊，將更多地利用傳統的激勵機製🤷🏽♂️，而不是通證或加密貨幣🔘。
張純信：投資者如何看待區塊鏈👍🏽🎇？區塊鏈的神秘感消失了嗎😭？主要原因是什麽？
格雷格·斯維：除了風險投資🚭，要進入企業區塊鏈市場仍然很困難，因為大多數企業都是私有的。人們對加密貨幣的興趣差異很大👨🏼🏭，這塊基本上仍是一個零售市場👨🏼💼。最近，隨著信托托管人、交易所、交易對手和其他基礎設施提供商的出現，機構投資者對加密貨幣的興趣有所增加。
張純信：是什麽推動了區塊鏈的應用？使人們猶豫的原因主要又是什麽⚓️🅰️？
格雷格·斯維：在過去一年左右👩🦳，區塊鏈領域最大的變化是其技術使用的風險正在消失🚣♀️，這是因為有關這些系統如何工作的證據和市場知識越來越多。反復的驗證和市場熟悉度使區塊鏈相關企業與決策者的對話更加容易。
Axoni在信貸衍生品領域的工作🗣，讓市場洞悉了我們的技術是如何運作的🪆，我們在股票掉期方面的工作向世界表明，成功的部署和切實的利益是可能的🙋🏼。真實世界的應用程序對於解釋新系統或流程是有幫助的，因為它使技術對終端用戶更具相關性🤽🏻♂️。
Axoni領跑數據處理“最後一英裏”
張純信：你是如何創辦Axoni的🎾？它的最初使命是什麽？多年來有什麽變化？
格雷格·斯維：公司最初叫TradeBlock🤸🏻♀️，為數字貨幣市場上的機構交易員提供工具。本質上，TradeBlock提供了一個統一的界面，用於整合數據和公司間的交互🥁，這些公司可能在不同的交易所執行交易，擁有多個錢包🛀，可能有數千個場外交易對手🧎♀️，團隊中的許多人擔任不同的角色👨🏻。
我們的公司成立於2016年🧔🏽，目前它已成為全球領先的數字貨幣後交易基礎設施提供商。隨著我們開發出這些工具，我們意識到底層協議可以給世界開啟一個有效率的世界，便開始更加關註這一領域的業務，最終將其發展成為Axoni。
張純信🦴：如今Axoni在做什麽🎃？你認為什麽是它的價值所在？
格雷格·斯維😽：我們確保我們的客戶擁有及時🕯、準確、完整的數據🤦🏻。然而，我們不僅僅是一個軟件供應商。我們與業界密切合作，幫助大型機構掌握復雜的技術部署，並建立了一個經過驗證的、可重復的模型🫦，以便在市場上廣泛地部署這一基礎設施🪟。
張純信：區塊鏈只是在重復我們已經做了很長時間的事情嗎🕝？它到底填補了我們哪些真正的“需要”，使之前的不可能變為可能？
格雷格·斯維🤷🏻♀️：電子數據傳輸的概念已經存在很長時間了。區塊鏈技術的主要飛躍是確認所有相關方正確地存儲和處理數據🛼。完成這“最後一英裏”的數據自動化和同步👌🏿，除了大幅降低風險外🦄𓀂，還可以在資本市場上削減數百億美元的成本🤦♂️。
張純信：有一種“為區塊鏈而區塊鏈”的評價，認為區塊鏈發展更多是一種追逐潮流的現象ℹ️🚭。這種說法可取嗎？
格雷格·斯維🙇🏻♀️：在很多情況下，這種說法確有其合理之處。區塊鏈領域吸引了大量的風險投資、咨詢收入和內部預算💇♀️。在過去很長一段時間🧑🌾🧖，貼上“區塊鏈”的標簽可以提高項目獲得融資的可能性。事實上，僅僅與“區塊鏈”一詞沾邊是驅動許多項目的主要原因。而這樣的日子已經遠去🕵️♀️，不斷試驗的階段已經結束，區塊鏈的解決方案必須依靠自身的優點在市場中站穩腳跟，這就意味著部署的總量減少🧒🏻，而可行部署的比例會增加。
張純信：能否舉個例子說明區塊鏈在如今扮演的關鍵角色💅🏿，以及您對其未來發展的期望？
格雷格·斯維：就股票掉期交易而言🎨，眾所周知破損數據的問題是一個困擾行業已久的問題👈🏽。要計算一個掉期合約的月還款額，其中可能包含數千個基礎數據點🤼♂️，所有這些數據點都是由交易雙方各自收集、存儲和處理的；這些數據點再乘以市場上各種掉期產品的類型和交易對手的數量，你不難想象人們對掉期產品的價值產生分歧的頻率有多高🤚。這一切導致巨大的運營成本🦋👨🏼🍳、糟糕的客戶服務和始料未及的風險。
通過我們對區塊鏈的基礎設施建設，進入共享賬本的任何數據都可以一種即時的、可證明的方式與所有相關方進行同步，這就消除了傳輸中斷，並大幅降低了運營成本和風險[1]。
張純信：區塊鏈為何能為這些企業帶來價值？如今，它們為何轉向區塊鏈尋求解決方，是暫且為之還是長久之計？
格雷格·斯維：這可以說是長期以來第一次真正意義上依靠區塊鏈進行的根本性修復🔷。當人們能夠完全仰賴分類賬上的所有數據，區塊鏈就使效率達到前所未有的水平。
張純信：這些市場主導企業如何看待區塊鏈的生態系統？區塊鏈技術將在機構層面成為核心競爭力（即超大型企業內化這些技術能力）嗎？還是會發展成為行業內一個獨立的部門🤱？
格雷格·斯維6️⃣：每個主要的金融機構都需要有足夠的專業知識來了解它們當下使用的系統，尤其從安全和風險管理的角度來說。但從可用性的角度來看，它們不需要對系統運作背後的每一個復雜細節了如指掌👩🏻🎓。
規範就位，發展區塊鏈機遇大於風險
張純信🖥：您最感興趣的下一代應用技術或應用案例是什麽？
格雷格·斯維：至今，我們還沒看到傳統證券以實質性的方式涉足區塊鏈基礎設施，盡管其間有許多嘗試——這將是該行業向前邁出的一大步。
張純信：目前，這些領域有人開拓嗎📸？如果沒有，我們需要達到哪些關鍵性的裏程碑以使這些願景成為現實？
格雷格·斯維：已經有很多人做過嘗試🤬。其中一個重要的裏程碑是在分布式數字環境中，獲得對證券的明確監管。
張純信🏊🏻♂️：從長遠來看👧🏽💜，展望未來5年或10年，你認為“金融”一詞的含義與我們今天理解的會有何不同🏆？
格雷格·斯維：我們對當下金融的自動化程度估計過高。時至今日，人們為了許多重復的⏰、不必要的過程依然要進行大量的手工作業。在接下來的10年裏，情況將會大不相同。隨著區塊鏈不斷降低商業成本，我期待看到更多挑戰傳統金融模式的企業出現，而這些傳統金融模式歷來需要龐大的資產負債表來支撐。
張純信：在社會福利方面，區塊鏈將如何使未來比現在更好🧗🏼？除了在金融領域發展一個提供就業和賺錢機會的新行業，日常投資者如何從中獲益？
格雷格·斯維：關於社會公益，我首先要指出的是區塊鏈這項技術給金融市場帶來的透明度和可審核性👟💁♀️。金融機構和監管機構花費大量時間🧑🦽，很大程度是試圖了解各種風險的影響。在完全透明的情況下🔺，識別和解決系統性風險就要容易得多。
張純信🔰：您能談談區塊鏈在中國的發展嗎？您如何描述中國區塊鏈行業的“現狀”？
格雷格·斯維：我驚嘆於中國政府在這項技術背後投入了如此多的資源和其他支持🔼。區塊鏈是一種基於網絡的技術👨🏼💼，因此🍥，任何能夠快速驅動大規模網絡的因素都是至關重要的。在美國，通常是由市場循序漸進做出決定👨👨👧👧、影響行業的發展軌跡。
一方面，我不得不設想🤗，中國將成為全球第一個擁有政府支持的數字貨幣的大國，這將對提高它的金融效率大有好處。但另一方面👩🏼🎤，在渠道和真實性方面也會存在風險☎。但是我們不能忽略，為世界樹立一個先例這樣一個機會意義有多大。
註釋🏊🏼：
[1] 作者按：美國存管信托結算公司（DTCC）如今使用Axoni的區塊鏈管理其名義價值為10萬億美元的衍生品清單🧑🚀。美國期權清算公司（OCC）及其720億美元的貸款股票同樣如此。
How Blockchain Has Revolutionized the Finance Industry?
Interviewee: Greg Schvey
Co-founder of Axoni
Interviewer: Charles Chang
Deputy Dean of Academics, Professor of Finance and Director of the Fintech Research Center at Fanhai International School of Finance, Fudan University
Blockchain, in many ways, started as a technology on the fringes of the industry, initially invoking images of “Burning Man” and server farms pumping out Bitcoins. Many early adopters and pundits viewed it as a technology that would work outside of what they considered the existing hegemony, one that would rage against the industry rather than play a role in its evolution. Early applications like the Bitcoin and ICOs sought specifically to avoid existing regulation but also exhibited its limitations for the same reason.
As the world has come to understand the technology and its applications in a richer way, Blockchain has become a part of ecosystem-building and has brought together the finance industry and community, rather than serving only those outside of it. It is providing platforms for information sharing, self-regulation, risk monitoring, and investor protection—to the betterment of all.
One of the early adopters and pioneers in this transformation is Greg Schvey, founder of TradeBlock and founder/CEO of Axoni. In this talk, we hear about his journey and his views on the future of Blockchain in the Finance industry, in his own words.
Blockchain from then to now
Charles Chang: What are the key changes since Satoshi that are accelerating adoption in the finance industry? How would you describe the transition from when you originally got interested in Blockchain to where it’s come today?
Greg Schvey: I was originally introduced to bitcoin in 2011 by Jeff, my brother and co-founder. At the time, the community was limited to the members of a couple of online message boards. It was a small but passionate group with a few standout characters from across the globe. The notion that all of the infrastructure based on blockchain tech today originated from an anonymous inventor and subsequently pushed forward on internet forums is something most people today may not be aware of.
Even outside of Blockchain, there is a broader secular trend of technology adoption in finance, including the increasing use of third-party services and/or software where costs can be mutualized across the industry, rather than everyone dealing with the expense, headache, and risk of building and maintain everything on their own. By using external software providers, trading firms can spend their energy generating alpha instead of building the same systems as everyone else. This could be said of nearly every part of a financial institutions’ infrastructure, from servers to risk engines to user interfaces.
The biggest impact though has been from the advancement of Blockchain’s practical application in capital markets after much experimentation and iteration. With every new technology there is an adoption curve, with a few forward-thinking users pressing forward early on and the rest of the cohort catching up eventually. Those early adopters tend to be more forgiving of temporary technical deficiencies and are concerned less about social validation, preferring instead to play a role in technological evolution. With networks now available to immediately offer benefits to end users, the barrier to entry has fallen substantially.
Charles Chang: How would you characterize the state of adoption for Blockchain?
Greg Schvey: We’re definitely still early in what is most likely a 10-20 year trend.
Charles Chang: How are banks viewing Blockchain adoption?
Greg Schvey: Like any advancement, there is a spectrum of views. In our experience, most have come to view enterprise Blockchain infrastructure as an important alternative to traditional database and network systems, though where each bank is (or each group within a bank) differs. Banks have warmed to conversations about cryptocurrencies, but are generally much more hesitant to get involved due to various regulatory concerns. I think incentives to participate in infrastructure provision or network use will draw on more traditional incentive structures rather than on tokens or cryptocurrency.
Charles Chang: How are investors viewing it? Has Blockchain been de-mystified and what are the key reasons?
Greg Schvey: Other than venture investing, it’s still difficult to get exposure to the enterprise Blockchain market since most of the companies are private. Interest in cryptocurrencies varies widely and remains largely a retail market. More recently, we’ve seen an increase in institutional investor interest in cryptocurrencies now that trusted custodians, exchanges, trading counterparties, and other infrastructure providers have begun to emerge.
Charles Chang: What has helped adoption? What are key reasons for hesitation?
Greg Schvey: The biggest shift in the last year or so is that adoption of the technology has been de-risked by virtue of the increasing proof points and market knowledge about how these systems work. The repeated validation and market familiarity makes conversations with decision makers much easier.
Our own work in credit derivatives gave the market insight into how our technology works, and our work in equity swaps showed the world that successful deployment and tangible benefits are possible. It helps to have real world applications to help explain new systems or processes, as it makes the technology much more relatable for end users.
On the Axoni from then to now
Charles Chang: How did you start Axoni? What was its original mission and has that evolved as well over the years?
Greg Schvey: The company was originally called TradeBlock and provided tools for institutional traders in the digital currency markets. Essentially, TradeBlock provides a single interface that unifies the data and interactions for firms that may be executing trades at various different exchanges, have multiple wallets, have potentially thousands of over-the-counter counterparties, and many people on their team across many roles.
We spun that company out in 2016 and it has since become the world’s leading provider of post-trade infrastructure for digital currencies. As we built out those tools, we realized the underlying protocols could open a world of efficiencies, and eventually we began to focus more heavily on that area of the business, which would eventually come to be known as Axoni.
Charles Chang: What does Axoni do today and what do you view as the value proposition?
Greg Schvey: We ensure our clients have timely, accurate, and complete data. However, we’re more than a software provider. We work closely with the industry to align large institutions on complicated technology deployments and have built out a proven, repeatable model to get this infrastructure deployed in a wide range of markets.
Charles Chang: Is Blockchain just re-doing something we have been doing for a long time? What is the real “need” being filled that was previously impossible?
Greg Schvey: The concept of electronic data transfer has existed for a long time. The major leap with this technology is confirmation that all relevant parties are storing and processing that data correctly. Finishing that last mile of automation and synchronization has the potential to take out tens of billions of dollars of costs in capital markets, in addition to substantially reducing risk.
Charles Chang: There is some notion out there of “Blockchain for Blockchain’s sake,” that there is some fad-component. Is that mis-informed?
Greg Schvey: In many cases, that’s actually quite accurate. The space attracted huge amounts of venture capital, consulting revenue, and internal budgets. For a long time, attaching the word “Blockchain” to something was a way to increase the probability of funding. In fact, simply doing something related to the word ”Blockchain” was a major driver for many projects. With those days now behind us and the time for constant experimentation is over, solutions have to survive on their own merits. This means less total deployments, but a much higher proportion that are viable.
Charles Chang: Can you give a case study as to the critical role that’s being played and how you expect that to develop going forward?
Greg Schvey: In the case of equity swaps, the issue of broken data is a longstanding and well-known problem in the industry. To calculate a monthly payment owed on an equity swap contract, there could be thousands of underlying datapoints, all collected, stored, and processed separately by each party to the trade. Multiply that by the various swap types and number of counterparty connections throughout the market and you can quickly imagine how frequently people end up disagreeing on the value of a swap. This leads to huge operational costs, poor client service, and undesirable risk.
With our Blockchain infrastructure, any data that goes onto the shared ledger is immediately and provably synchronized with all relevant parties, eliminating breaks and substantially reducing operational costs and risk[1].
Charles Chang: Why is this driving value for these firms? Why are they willing to turn to it now and is this a “temporary” fix or long-term?
Greg Schvey: This is arguably the first truly fundamental fix in a very long time. The idea of being able to rely fully on all data on the ledger brings a level of efficiency that has never existed before.
Charles Chang: How do they view the ecosystem? Are these going to be core-competencies at the institutional level (i.e., will mega-firms internalize these capabilities) or will this develop into a separate sector of the industry?
Greg Schvey: Every major financial institution needs to have sufficient expertise to understand the systems they’re using, particularly from a security and risk management perspective. That said, understanding every intricacy of how the system works isn’t required from a usability perspective more generally.
Going forward
Charles Chang: What is the next generation of applications or usage cases that you find most interesting?
Greg Schvey: We really haven’t seen traditional securities move to Blockchain infrastructure yet in any meaningful way, despite the many attempts. This would be a great step forward for the industry.
Charles Chang: Are there people working in those spaces now? If not, what are the key milestones we need to hit in order for these to become a reality?
Greg Schvey: There are many people who have tried this. One of the big milestones would be obtaining regulatory clarity about the recognition of a security in a distributed, digital environment.
Charles Chang: Going farther out, if we looked at this in terms of 5- or 10-years from now, how might you expect “finance proper” to be different from what we are seeing today?
Greg Schvey: People far overestimate the automation in finance today. There is still a huge amount of manual work being done for repetitive, unnecessary processes. That will look very different over the next decade. As that lowers the cost of doing business, I expect we’ll see more challengers to traditional financial models that historically have required monstrous balance sheets to facilitate.
Charles Chang: In terms of the social good, how is this future better than where we are today? Other than growing a new sector in the finance that provide some jobs and opportunities to make money, how are every-day investors going to benefit?
Greg Schvey: The first thing I’d point to about social good is the transparency and auditability this technology brings to financial markets. Much of what financial institutions and regulatory agencies spend time on is trying to understand the impact of various risks. With full transparency, identifying and solving for that systemic risk is much easier.
Charles Chang: Can you speak to the development of Blockchain-in-finance in China? How would you describe the “state” of the industry in China?
Greg Schvey: I’ve been impressed with the amount of resources and other support the government itself has put behind the technology. It’s a network-based tech, so anything that can drive a large scale network quickly will be critical. In the U.S., it’s generally left to the market to make that determination over time.
I have to imagine China will be the first global power with a government-backed digital currency. There will be benefits in terms of efficiency, as well as risks regarding access and authority, but the opportunity to set a precedent for the world cannot be overlooked.
Notes:
[1] Author’s note: The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) now uses Axoni’s Blockchain to manage its 10 trillion US dollar nominal-value derivatives inventory as does the Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) and its 72 billion US dollars in equities-on-loan.
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