Fireside Chat with Tom Zschach (SWIFT) and Aryan Sheikhalian (CMT Digital) at ETHConf

Sun, Aug 2, 2026, 12:00 AM

In this fireside chat, Aryan Sheikhalian from CMT Digital sits down with Tom Zschach, who recently finished over six years as Chief Innovation Officer at SWIFT, to discuss settlement, trust, tokenization, and neutral governance. Aryan opens on crypto's pitch that it is faster and cheaper, and asks whether speed was ever what held institutions back. Tom explains that while speed and cost matter, the institutional space above all needs certainty: a treasurer sending millions or billions wants security and recourse, and will accept a transaction taking a few seconds longer if the outcome is guaranteed. He addresses what crypto misunderstands about SWIFT, clarifying that SWIFT is a messaging and coordination network that does not issue value, settle, or custody. It coordinates trust through standards, a rule book, and bilateral agreements, and he calls it the original DAO with human governance. Tom explains the SWIFT ledger, a blockchain layered on top of the existing network with no mandates, whose first use case is banks making cross border payments between themselves using deposit tokens as an alternative to nostro vostra accounts. On trust, he frames the hard problem as a boundary issue: blockchains work well for things fully inside the network like swaps and staking, but get complicated when relying on external data or representing off-chain assets like stablecoin reserves. He predicts the most liquid, well understood markets like tokenized bonds and treasuries (DTCC targeting up to $100 trillion) will be tokenized first, while dispute prone assets like real estate come later. He warns against replicating incumbency and single chain control in Web3, favoring a multi-chain world with real competition even as Ethereum sits in pole position. Drawing on his time at CLS (which settles around $10 trillion daily across 18 currencies), he argues scaling institutional adoption requires regulatory clarity and credentials like KYC and wallet eligibility traveling with the asset across chains. He closes bullish that cross border value will move on public blockchains, citing Citi's $5.5 trillion projection. 00:00 Introduction 00:28 Meet CMT Digital and Tom Zschach 01:08 Was Speed Ever What Held Institutions Back 01:28 Why Institutions Need Certainty Above All 02:22 What the Crypto Crowd Misunderstands About SWIFT 03:06 SWIFT as a Messaging Network 03:26 What SWIFT Is Not: No Value, Settlement, or Custody 03:49 Adding Density and Endpoints With the SWIFT Ledger 04:05 SWIFT as a Coordination Network for Trust 04:41 What Blockchains Need to Replicate SWIFT 05:03 Why SWIFT and Blockchains Do Different Things 05:30 SWIFT as the Original DAO 05:56 How the SWIFT Ledger Works 06:25 Cross Border Payments With Deposit Tokens 06:51 What Trust Means Across TradFi and Crypto 07:33 Why External Dependencies Are the Hard Part 08:11 Stablecoins and the Boundary Issue 08:32 What Gets Tokenized First 09:02 Why Demand for Digital Money Is Clear 09:20 Liquid Markets: Bonds and Treasuries First 10:02 Why Dispute Prone Assets Come Later 10:45 SWIFT as the First DAO Revisited 11:22 Incumbency on Blockchain Rails 11:43 Why a Single Chain Undermines Neutrality 12:14 Why a Multi-Chain World Is Better 12:49 Room for More Open Governance 13:10 Leveling the Playing Field With DeFi 13:39 Tokenization Primitives Like Transferable KYC 14:31 Why He Calls It Finance, Not TradFi 14:49 Tokenization Transforming Capital Formation 15:18 Why Transformation Takes Time 15:45 What Convinced Him From Inside the Incumbent 16:07 CLS and $10 Trillion Daily FX Settlement 16:32 Why FX Settlement Was an Early Blockchain Use Case 17:25 Getting Banks Hooked Into Digital Assets 17:47 The Missing Pieces for Institutional Scale 18:21 Why Scale Breaks Across Venue and Chain 18:51 Why Credentials Must Travel With the Asset 19:12 ZK and Solving 19:35 Five Years Out: Value on Public Blockchains 20:09 Citi's $5.5 Trillion Projection 20:42 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _