Blockchain and digital finance are making phenomenal impacts on the world’s finance, one of which is that the four world-standard financial service providers known as the Big Four have been preparing to dive in the new kind of market.
The blockchain-based finance has been around for over a decade, but only until now that it is building up momentum with a tremendous scale. According to GlobeNewswire’s report on May 12, the blockchain technology market is estimated to reach $21 Billion by 2025. Companies, organizations and nations are taking this technology more seriously as they look into implementing blockchain and digital assets managing.
Naturally, the professional financial service providers are well aware of the innovation waves created by blockchain. The four world renowned and most trusted audit organizations are working with a number of blockchain and crypto companies on ways to combat regulatory uncertainty, interoperability challenges, consensus models and development of the technology. PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) formed special “crypto teams” with over 200 staffs in 20 countries around the world to work on blockchain-related projects, KPMG recent projects have been providing solutions to blockchain strategies, participant onboarding, governance and operating models. It also takes further actions in other related technologies such as Internet of Things, AI and machine learning. Ernest & Young, the other Big Four firm, has been working with Microsoft and ConsenSys to develop an open-source blockchain project called Baseline Protocol, which runs on the public Ethereum mainnet. Deloitte also shows its interest in the digital finance by releasing a report on blockchain interoperability. The report brings up a key finding, noting that although blockchains are built for specific industry ecosystems, the technology may work better if all of these were linked together under one framework.
The participation of these international audit firms will bring greater confidence to investors in audited companies, and this is necessary even in a trustless finance system using blockchain. As the business of digital assets continues to grow and mature, and compliance and regulatory standards become more robust, auditors will continue to play a pivotal role.
As a fintech company that provides blockchain-based solutions to businesses, LiveTrade has been looking for better ways to ensure the trustworthiness of SMBs who are using our DIPO service. LiveTrade believes that the Big Four firms will serve as the bridge between blockchain ecosystem and the institutional world. With the world-standard audit reports conducted by these firms, the SMBs will have better chance in every DIPO fundraising event.
The fact that crypto market and blockchain technology is slowly but surely transforming the world’s finance is undeniable. However, it is too soon to conclude that huge financial services providers will be leading the new finance. Companies and organizations are joining in a race of adopting the technology. Those who don’t it seriously will be left behind in the next few years.