Andreessen Horowitz just launched a crypto fund

This could bring more legitimacy to the cryptocurrency space. The fledgling crypto market was thrust into the spotlight with its surge in value last year — but it still faces substantial roadblocks. Price volatility has led to hesitation among both retail and experienced investors, and distaste and reputation-related issues remain — the US House of Representatives passed a bill to study the use of cryptocurrency in sex trafficking or drug trafficking, indicating ongoing concern about its legitimacy. This vote of confidence from a leading VC firm could help resolve some of these issues, ultimately allowing the industry to mature into a more mainstream asset or venture option.

Of the many technologies reshaping the world economy, distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) are among the most hyped. DLTs are most often associated with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, but such coverage sidelines the broader use cases of DLTs, even though they stand to make a far bigger impact on the broader the financial services (FS) industry.

DLT’s value lies in its ability to centralize record-keeping, while cutting out the need for authorization by an overseeing party, instead allowing a record to be confirmed by multiple parties with access to the database. This means DLTs have the potential to streamline financial institutions’ (FIs) operations, boost data security, improve customer relationships, and drastically cut costs. But many FIs have struggled to implement DLTs and reap the rewards, because of organizational obstacles, but also because of issues rooted in the technology itself. There are a few players working to make the technology more usable for FIs, and progress is now being made.

In a new report, Business Insider Intelligence takes a look at what DLTs are and why they hold so much promise for FS, the sectors in which DLTs are gaining the most traction and why, and the efforts underway to remove the obstacles preventing wider DLT adoption in finance. It also examines the few FIs close to unleashing their DLT projects, and how DLTs might transform the nature of FS if adoption truly takes off.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• DLTs are proving attractive to FIs because of their ability to act as a single source of truth, distribute information securely, cut out middlemen, improve transaction times, and cut redundancy and costs.
• DLTs like blockchain and smart contracts stand to save the FS industry up to $50 billion a year through improved operational efficiencies, reduced human error, and better regulatory compliance.
• The technology is being explored actively across FS, with trade finance, insurance, and capital markets proving especially active. Overall adoption is still low because of organizational and technical hurdles, but these are now being eliminated, promising to boost implementation.
• A few FIs have pulled ahead of the curve and are very close to taking their DLT projects live, if they haven’t already. These players can serve as useful case studies for other institutions in getting their DLT solutions live.

In full, the report:

• Looks at what DLTs are, and why the FS industry is working hard to make use of them.
• Gives an overview of the financial segments which are seeing the most DLT activity, and what they stand to gain.
• Outlines efforts being made to make DLT more approachable and usable for the FS industry.
• Examines use cases in which FIs have managed to take their pilots live, and what they can teach their peers.