On August 9, 2018, the World Bank issued a press release highlighting what it described
as the "World's First Blockchain Bond." It will be
issued in Australia and, according to news reports, will be called
a BONDI—both in honor of the famous Australian beach and also
a clever acronym for "Blockchain Offered New Debt
Instrument." The issue size is approximately AUD $100 million
(about USD $74 million).
Current regulations in the United States limit the ability of
securities to trade exclusively over a blockchain, but over time we
believe they will become more commonplace as the rules and market
practice adapt. More fundamentally, there is a huge potential in
blockchain to disrupt the current U.S. trading and settlement
process that developed after the paperwork crisis of the early
1970s and is now based on a decades-old business model.
