Big banks have had blockchain ambitions for nearly a decade, but so far they have only taken baby steps toward achieving them. This year will be different, many predict, as the experiments start to face real-world tests.
To diehard crypto fans, though, what the banks are up to might sound a little boring. That was evident at the no-hype — and Lamborghini-free — Digital Assets at Duke conference last week, where executives from big banks were optimistic that this year will prove to be an inflection point for pushing real use cases after years of laboring over the underlying technology. What they touted are largely ways to improve workflows, automate manual processes and cut costs.