Why Wall Street Is Betting Big on Tokenized Assets

Our next guest is no stranger to you all, longtime friend of ours here on the broadcast, Andrew McCormick, head of institutional and market development at Chain Link.

Nice to see you again.

You too, sir.

Congrats on the Knicks championship.

First time I've seen you since K in 5.

We'll say it every day down here for the next year as long as we can.

Let's talk tokenizing an asset.

This is something that, you know, insiders are much more aware of the average person watching at home.

They see these headlines, they say, what does that actually mean?

Explain it simply so people better.

Understand the process.

Sure thing.

So shows like this, media, emails, IMs, they're not just 9 to 5 during a weekday, 24/7, right?

So our money should be the same thing.

So let's take assets, whether it's cash, other foreign currencies, money market funds, equities, put it on a blockchain, allow to trade 24/7, peer to peer, whatever it may look like, and just trying to make our money more accessible and more efficient.

Why do you think Wall Street is so interested with the general iteration of tokenization right now?

Because 10 years ago down here on the floor we weren't really talking about this.

Now I don't go very far in my day to day without talking about it.

Absolutely.

Even I think 2 years ago, 3 years ago, there was a lot of skepticism, but I think Wall Street banks, financial firms to recognize this can make our existing systems faster, more efficient, lower risk, help us make more money, help our customers, and that got people's attention and it's gone from ideas and brainstorming to real life production platforms now.

That's why I was wondering, where are we in the process.

Let's say this is a 9 inning baseball game.

How deep past the first pitch are we to fully realize tokenization across the board?

I go top and 2nd inning.

OK, so I think today there's maybe 2 or $300 billion or so of assets that have been tokenized, and you know, an exchange like this each day is doing hundreds of billions, maybe even $1 trillion.

So we're early days.

The market out there is massive and endless.

We've had some banks say they expect by 2030 $4 trillion of tokenized assets.

So if we're sitting at.

Less than half a trillion today.

I'll go top a second.

Andrew, do we have a sense yet what this will eventually mean for everyday investors and even for people that are not really dialed in on the markets or day traders?

How about people with just, you know, 401k?

Hey, they've played the game over the years of their career in terms of retirement.

Is there, is it a clear picture yet on how tokenization will impact those Americans?

I love this part of the story because I think it will give us all more freedom over our money, not just, but the people all around the world who Their whole lives, investing or otherwise are kind of tied to US market hours.

So if you're in France or Australia and you want to trade whatever stock, you gotta be waking up at crazy times to do so.

But in a world of tokenization, you can do it when you want, with whom you want, and it's all about freedom, and I think that's a win for everybody.

What is one component of the general tokenization or even blockchain storyline that you still think we are not talking enough about?

What should we be more focused on as the underlying tech continues to evolve?

So at the heart of Chain Link especially is security.

There's people every hour of every day trying to hack into financial systems, whether it's on a bank account, corporate systems, chain link, our system.

It's all about security, security first, to making sure people's assets are protected because we work hard for our money.

You don't want to lose it.

And so that security topic is critical, um, for today and also endings 3 through 9.

OK, so I can't talk about blockchain without asking you about the Clarity Act.

I am very focused on how. days until the midterm elections, 83 from today until Tuesday, November 3rd.

If you're an active member of Congress, you probably don't want to be passing legislation.

You want to be fundraising.

You want to be campaigning.

You want to keep the job that you have, right?

And yet we're still waiting for progress on the Clarity Act.

Where are we?

How do you see this shaking out realistically?

So I've been in this space for 9 years, since 2017.

I've been saying we'll soon get legislation answering this topic.

So now we've got another month or so to a vote on September 15th.

Hopefully then move it to a real vote.

So it's tough.

The wait is hard.

It's a little sad at times.

I'm usually super optimistic.

I'm gonna keep that optimism, but we've got a vote on the calendar September 15th, and after nine years of waiting, I will happily wait another month or so.

I got about 30 seconds left.

Let's keep the optimism train rolling along here.

What most excites you, not just where this conversation is today, where you most hope it tomorrow, Andrew?

Yeah, as the, the industry continues to scale, because again, I genuinely believe this gives people greater access, freedom.

Control of their own money whether you're a brand new retail investor or you're running a hedge fund somewhere on Wall Street.

You want more control and freedom, and tokenization can do that.

We're early innings, and every month there's more and more projects.

Every week, Chain Link's announcing a new partnership to help grow this space and ultimately give people more freedom over their own money.

Andrew, always grateful for your time.

You're one of our OGs here.

We're coming up on one year of the broadcast.

You've joined us basically since the beginning.

I'm always grateful for your time, always a joy.

Come back anytime.

Good to see you.