The  largest exchange in Australia, ASX (Australian Securities Exchange) is putting the infrastructure in place to soon be the first mainstream financial market to adopt blockchain technology.

Bitcoin, being the largest and by far the most popular cryptocurrency is of course backed by Blockchain’s transparent technology allowing a more open and visible banking system. The Blockchain public  ledger can truly become the future of finance as more global financial institutions accepting of the disruptive technology. As more nodes, have a copy of the ledger and  are verifying  the blocks transactions by completing difficult mathematical problems the mass acceptance of the system will continue to rise.

ASX will implement a similar distributed ledger to replace its decade-old settlement and clearing system, called the Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS). In 2016, ASX announced it would be working with Digital Asset Holdings, a US-based blockchain startup, on the system. After two years the two firms believe their platform is finally ready for the hyperspeed environment of stock trading.

Transactions in the updated CHESS will make the transactions speed more efficient as well as more cost per transaction cheaper. ASX will manage the system on a "secure private network" where all users are known and verified. Traders will, however, still have access to "non-affiliated market operators and clearing and settlement facilities." It's not yet clear how that functionality will work though, or whether how these services will need to interact  with the blockchain.

ASX will continue to consult with stakeholders ahead of a planned launch in March 2018. Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital Asset, said it would be "the first meaningful proof that the technology can live up to its potential." Bitcoin surged past $17,000 today, further fueling the debate about the real value of the digital currency  and  how likely an imminent crash is. Royal Bank of Scotland’s Chairman Sir Howard Davies, compared it to Dante's Inferno on Bloomberg TV. "'Abandon hope all ye who enter here.' I think that's probably what's needed," he said.

The financial community is split on Bitcoin as form of payment, but mostly supportive of its underlying blockchain technology. It's now being used to track shipments, keep unsafe food off store shelves, and power secure browsers. The attraction is a simple one: the decentralized system makes it almost impossible for anyone to tamper with the ledger. That, in turn, leads to public trust — something banks are serverly lacking at the moment.