"The decision of whether to use the technology as an commercial-grade replacement [of ASX's existing settlement system] will be made in fiscal year 2018."
yeah, I actually cover that one in passing. Digital Asset Holdings (Blythe Masters/Hyperledger) sold the previous CEO a pile of blockchain bafflegab that wasn't realisable with any extant blockchain (and certainly not Hyperledger). Said previous CEO had to resign after a bribery allegation, and the new guy isn't very keen on the plan. The main thing driving it is that their old system is creaky as hell.
The thing is, though, that blockchains promise replacement by magic, and there's no magic there - it's just as much work as any major system replacement. Also, other stakeholders are already unhappy this doesn't interface a lot like the old system did.
If this pilot works out at all, I suspect the first thing they'll do is rip out the blockchain and replace it with a conventional centralised database. Because this is for dealing with the ASX, and centralisation is obviously the correct thing and "permissioned blockchain" is another word for "the world's most inefficient centrally-administered clustered database".
The thing is, though, that blockchains promise replacement by magic, and there's no magic there - it's just as much work as any major system replacement. Also, other stakeholders are already unhappy this doesn't interface a lot like the old system did.
If this pilot works out at all, I suspect the first thing they'll do is rip out the blockchain and replace it with a conventional centralised database. Because this is for dealing with the ASX, and centralisation is obviously the correct thing and "permissioned blockchain" is another word for "the world's most inefficient centrally-administered clustered database".