For example, current crypto assets still fail to ensure clear and legally certain settlement finality6, which is a necessary condition for a safe and efficient payment system, as emphasised by the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures (PFMI) issued by the CPMI and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).
In fact, the predecessors of the CPMI under the chairmanships of Hans Meyer and Wayne Angell spent the better part of a decade getting finality right for interbank payment systems.7 Up until the 1990s, the risk that net settlement positions could be unwound meant that the failure of a single bank could lead to a cascade of failures.8 This systemic risk was one of the main motivations for introducing real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems around the world.