Overstock Deploying Blockchain for Stock Transactions

Overstock Deploying Blockchain for Stock Transactions

Capital Markets CIO Outlook | Monday, July 09, 2018

For the first time in the world, U.S. online retailer Overstock made stock transactions leveraging blockchain technology. With the blockchain in place, the firm shared publicly distributed equities to over 126,000 companies. For new readers, blockchains are virtual ledgers operated independently by a global computer network without the intervention of any company or government. In other words, the blockchain mitigates the intermediaries and loopholes of transactions and assures financial transactions more accurately and cost-effectively. These emerging benefits have encouraged NASDAQ and others to explore blockchain technology for recording the stock trading of unlisted companies.

Coming to Overstock; the retailer offered a “blockchain stock” that enabled stakeholders to buy new blockchain shares. They were able to transfer the 126,565 blockchain shares to investor accounts purchased using blockchain technology. The benefits of blockchain are immense in the financial market today, which is being driven by three primary factors—stock exchanges, brokers, and securities central custodians. As a result, if any one of these three essentials adopts blockchain, the other two will extinct, and the burgeoning cost of guaranteeing the transaction can be significantly reduced.

See Also: CIO Review | Veruna

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