How Delaware’s Blockchain Trial Could Change Wall Street

A Clear Description of the Blockchain and how it’s being integrated in our financial organizations. 

With a population of just under a million, the small state of Delaware is nevertheless a behemoth when it comes to corporate finance law. The state carries the distinction of having the most well-developed body of corporate law in the country. As a result, two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated there and it is also where 85% of initial public offerings choose to domicile.

That is why a pilot program testing blockchain technology underway in Delaware could be a game-changer for Wall Street, according to speakers at a recent event hosted by the Mack Institute for Innovation Management and the Penn Wharton Public Policy Initiative. The Delaware Blockchain Initiative is applying the technology to its public archives to store, distribute, encrypt and sunset documents. Later, the blockchain could be used for notice-of-lien filings, share issuances and other official actions.

“Delaware is such an important state. It is the state where the foundational infrastructure of finance in the United States happens,” said Caitlin Long, president of blockchain startup Symbiont, the state’s partner in the program. When Delaware makes regulatory changes, “it’s going to have a big impact on the whole corporate industry and therefore on all of Wall Street.”