[LINK] ASX CHESS and Blockchain

[Roger Clarke]

[Distributed database technology dates to the mid-1970s.  DBMS text-books of the mid-1980s routinely contained a section on it.  Google Scholar shows the earliest papers from c.1965, and hundreds pre-1980.

[Used within controlled contexts, blockchain may well be a particular approach to distributed database management with some features of interest.

[However, the function of ASX's CHESS is to settle sell-and-buy transactions in shares.  (It's also said to "record shareholdings", but that's a function performed by share registries, not the ASX).

[Okay, so maybe the ASX intends to 'disintermediate' registry companies out of existence, and replace them with an ASX-administered distributed database.

[But shares are a form of commodity, i.e. they are undifferentiated, and no-one cares whose they used to be, only that they're mine now.  Put another way, whereas provenance matters with some categories of goods (objets d'art being a good example), it matters not at all with shares, because the registry authenticates the holding beng sold, and warrants that the shares are valid.

[So ... of what relevance is *any* kind of 'chain' to either a settlement or a registry system?  Let alone a distributed chain?  Let alone one developed using blockchain technology?

[As they say, "just askin'" ...]


The ASX is going ahead with a blockchain-based core system
CHESS overhaul will use distributed ledger technology.
Allie Coyne
itNews
Dec 7 2017
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/the-asx-is-going-ahead-with-a-blockchain-based-core-system-479315

...

Distributed ledger technology, or blockchain, ... operates as a decentralised, public ledger of every transaction made, with transactions verified and shared by a global network of computers.

The ASX, however, is implementing its own private distributed ledger network "where participants are known, 'permissioned' to have access, and must comply with ongoing and enforceable obligations".

"The system will be designed without access barriers to non-affiliated market operators and clearing and settlement facilities," the ASX said.


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Tel: +61 2 6288 6916                        http://about.me/roger.clarke
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Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University