Interview with Todd McDonald, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at R3 (Corda) for Enterprise Blockchain 2021 report by LeadBlock Partners
-
Which of the recent projects launched on Corda are you most excited about?
“We are thrilled to see infrastructure layers like SDX go live and support digital assets for regulated markets. Alongside SDX, the broader capital markets ecosystem is swiftly going to production to support the complete digital asset lifecycle on Corda. Agora and LedgerEdge are introducing blockchain-powered digital bonds for primary and secondary markets. HSBC is enabling investors to access records of assets bought on private markets in real-time. VALK is using Corda to digitalize the investment, trading and management of unlisted assets and has supported over $3 billion worth of deals to date. While HQLAx is working with the likes of J.P. Morgan, Euroclear, Deutsche Börse and Citi to enable atomic swaps of high-quality liquid assets all on Corda.”
-
What are the areas and themes which will drive enterprise adoption of Corda in the future?
“The most significant trend we’re seeing is the desire from banks and regulators to learn and experiment with regulated digital currencies, namely CBDCs and stablecoins. That’s why we hosted a CBDC working group with 140 leading institutions to inform the development of R3 Sandbox for Digital Currencies. The Digital Currencies Sandbox is a subscription that enables regulated digital currency experimentation with a ready-made ecosystem. We see central banks, commercial banks, regulators and payment providers simulate the issuance, distribution and exchange of CBDCs every day inside our Sandbox. R3’s work to date has also supported industry leading CBDC experimentation from projects such as Jura and Dunbar.”
-
How do you see the protocol race shaping up?
“R3 recognizes that the future is multi-platform. That’s why we’re investing heavily in interoperability solutions, so Corda applications can seamlessly transact value and assets across the broader ecosystem. We’ve demonstrated interoperability capabilities across traditional and emerging networks, including integrations with Modulr and tests with Ethereum and Solana. We’re very focused on enabling highly regulated entities across capital markets and banking to build solutions so they can participate in the future of digital assets, currencies and payments on and off Corda.”
