DTCC Study Says DLT Can Support Trading Volumes

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation announced the results of a benchmark study which demonstrated for the first time ever that distributed ledger technology (DLT) is capable of supporting average daily trading volumes in the US equity market of more than 100 million trades per day. The study, which was conducted by Accenture with additional support provided by technology service providers Digital Asset (DA) and R3, proved that DLT can perform at levels necessary to process an entire trading day’s volume at peak rates, which equates to 115,000,000 daily trades, or 6,300 trades per second for five continuous hours. Currently, public blockchains supporting crypto-currencies operate at single or double digit per second performance, which until now was the only indication of the potential volume that a private DLT might be able to support. DTCC noted that the study provided a starting point and only tested basic functionality. Additional work will be necessary for DTCC to determine if DLT can meet the resiliency, security, operational needs and regulatory requirements of its existing clearance and settlement system.