And as traditional capital markets increasingly migrate on chain, the transition of multi-trillion dollar institutions to decentralized networks is becoming the next financial mega trend from global banks to asset managers, the focus has shifted from discovering blockchain to actually building the secure infrastructure required for global cross-chain channel settlements and to leave this place. the U.S. regulated banking system chains recently appointed a new head of institutional and market development while joining us today is Andrew McCormick and great to have you here.
Thank you so much for joining me.
My pleasure always wonderful to chat with you.
Yes, so congratulations on the new role.
A lot has changed since you were last on FinTech TV.
So tell us why you decided to leave and join.
Look, it makes me feel really old, but I've been in the financial industry for almost 20 years.
In the last few years I've seen such an incredible change, even in this room here today as all our financial markets, instruments, assets are moving to use blockchain technology, and I am excited about that opportunity.
Chain link is a key infrastructure to make that all work securely, efficiently, and make it more accessible.
So I'm excited to be part of the Chain Link collapse team now and let's help build a better financial system.
Yes, and as you mentioned here we are about to wrap up the first half of 2026 and we're here at the New York Stock Exchange and as you mentioned, a lot has changed when it comes to that intersection of Trad and DI.
So when we talk about on chain brokerages, what are your expectations as we head into the Today tokenize stocks and assets is a very small percentage, but that's only growing in number.
And for an everyday investor, you may not notice a difference at first, but firms like ChainLink and so many others, including the New York Stock Exchange, are building a system where in the future that everyday investor can wake up, whether it's a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, any day of the week.
Anytime and trade a tokenize stock in his or her account and get that asset almost instantly and then have a lot more freedom of how they can use it and so this new system that so many firms are building and regulators are building will give investors more accessibility, more freedom, and just more efficient because our world is not in a 9 to 5 type world and so why should trading.
Yes, and as you mentioned, the first half of this year, there have been many terms that were applied to the space, including institutional adoption as well as tokenization, and as you mentioned, we are seeing infrastructure being adopted when it comes to the traditional markets here.
So what specific regulatory or technical guardrails do you think are necessary when we're talking about trad operating at scale?
So large financial institutions, they don't move rapidly.
They move thoughtfully and deliberately, and that's the reason why firms like the New York Stock Exchange have been around for 200+ years.
But to move thoughtfully and deliberately you need clear regulatory frameworks because you got to build governance processes, and compliance structure and have legal compliance teams to be able to build and steer the ship as needed.
And at the heart of that is clear regulation and you know we have increasing amount of positive speeches for the. and rule releases and guidance, but having clear legislation that will pass the test of time is priceless.
And then all those legal compliance risk teams can build the infrastructure needed to really scale this business and operations.
Yes, and speaking of scale, of course when we're talking about anything financed, we know that the regulations are so key as we move forward.
So there are a lot of expectations as we head into the rest of 2026 in terms of what.
You'll see on the legislative landscape, but what do you think will happen when we're heading into the second half of this year in terms of evolution?
So no matter what, I think there's more and more resources and time and assets are going to come into the blockchain space, and I see even if you look on LinkedIn, you see so many big institutions are hiring for blockchain roles, tokenization roles, crypto roles, and that's a huge signal to the market, not just for today, but for a year or two.
3 years from now and whether it's a formal like clarity act type legislation or just more strong rules, I think either will help significantly and it'll give institutions that type of comfort to invest more in the space because if you're running a business, the last thing you want is to pour a lot of time, people, energy, blood, sweat, and tears into an industry and then it change rapidly but I don't think that's going to happen and we're having more institutions see this as the future and they're committed. and growing.
And Andrew, finally, before I let you go, since you're coming from Trackfly and now you're at Chain Link, what are you most excited about?
And when it comes to retailers out there who are wondering how this will impact them moving forward, what would you actually say to them?
For retail investors, it's going to give you more freedom, and I love that in every aspect of life, and I've been in this space for almost 10 years and when I started talking about crypto at a Main Street trading firm in 2017.
People thought I was a little crazy and the next few years that kind of thinking continued and that went from that sounds crazy to should we do something in this space and now the firms are saying what can we do and how and how do we do it securely and I'm so excited to be part of the chain link ecosystem to help.
Firms bridge traditional finance to blockchain and do it in a compliant way, secure way, and a way that helps investors.
Well, Andrew, always great talking to you.
Thank you so much for joining us here at the New York Stock Exchange and congratulations on your new role.
My pleasure and have a wonderful 4th.
Thank you.
You too.
