Blockchain technology is currently being employed to intermediate billions of dollars daily. This is important because financial intermediation via blockchain technology is necessarily competitive whereas the traditional financial sector is generally uncompetitive. Notably, the lack of market competition in traditional financial services leads to rent extraction whereby traditional financial institutions capture most of the economic value in their interactions with customers. An example of this is deposit accounts through which banks earn large returns on the deposit capital but pay almost no interest to the customers providing that capital. In brief, blockchain technology serves as an antidote to this lack of competition in the financial sector and thus has the potential to significantly benefit customers.

Join Professor Fahad Saleh for a straightforward introduction to blockchain and its growing impact on finance. This session covers the fundamentals of blockchain, the current financial services migrating to these networks, and the role of cryptoassets (e.g., bitcoin, ether) in shaping blockchain’s value. The session will also discuss why effective, forward-thinking regulatory policies are essential.