Miami Beach, FL — A growing group of Wall Street and crypto executives say the financial system is heading toward a breaking point, as markets shift from a human-paced process to a machine-driven activity that happens around the clock.
“We are moving toward a world where transactions happen at a speed that no human can keep up with,” Sandy Kaul, head of digital assets and innovation at Franklin Templeton, said during a panel on the future of capital markets at Consensus in Miami on Tuesday. At the same time, “almost all processes in today’s financial markets were designed for humans, and none of them will withstand what’s coming,” she added.
The tension between these two ideas – faster, automated markets and existing systems designed for manual monitoring – was at the center of the conversation.
For decades, financial markets have relied on multi-layered processes to manage transactions. Systems aggregate transactions, reconcile records, and settle transactions hours or even days later. This structure dates back to a time when physical stock certificates were moved manually across Wall Street.
Today, blockchain infrastructure is beginning to remove these constraints. Panelists highlighted tokenization – the process of turning assets such as stocks or money market funds into digital tokens – as a key change. These tokens can move instantly, set up in seconds, and operate continuously.
“We are dismantling a system that has been in place for 50 years and going back to settling one transaction at a time,” Kaul said, describing how real-time settlement could replace the current batch-based model.
This change has practical implications. In a tokenized system, an investor’s money could remain fully invested until the exact moment it is spent. “Every penny of my income is fully invested from the time I earn it to the time I spend it,” said Christine Moy, a partner at Apollo, describing a future in which idle money largely disappears.
The same logic applies to large companies. Instead of holding cash in multiple accounts around the world, businesses could pool their funds into yield-generating assets and convert them only when payments are due.
However, major obstacles remain. Even though blockchain networks can already process transactions quickly, some panelists argued that the industry lacks the rules and standards necessary to allow institutions to operate at scale.
“We’ve solved the transaction problem. What’s missing is a governance standard,” said Tom Zschach, former chief innovation officer at Swift, emphasizing the need for clear rules around ownership, compliance and permissions.
This gap is important for large financial companies, where reliability often trumps speed. “If there’s a chance it won’t work, it’s not possible. What institutions need is certainty,” he said.
At the same time, competitive pressure is increasing. While new platforms offer faster and more flexible financial services, traditional businesses risk losing customers if they fail to adapt.
Overall, the discussion suggests that the next phase of market evolution will not be limited to faster transactions. Above all, it will be about rebuilding the underlying systems so that they can support continuous, automated capital flows, without breaking the trust on which global finance depends.
