Market Risk Becomes Infrastructure (Settlement/Cyber) Risk in Crypto

Permissionless blockchains, the most common type of settlement infrastructure in crypto, attract increasing attention from the traditional financial sector. Adoption may offer cost and speed advantages vis-à-vis legacy solutions. There is, however, an oft-overlooked, tight link between volatile crypto prices and infrastructure availability and security. Most permissionless blockchains are operated by a decentralized set of independent validators, compensated in unbacked cryptoassets known as native tokens. Should such tokens incur a substantial and persistent loss in market value, validators might leave. Transaction settlement could slow down or halt entirely, and the infrastructure’s exposure to cyber attacks would increase.

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