2016 has proven to be the year where the most forward-thinking financial institutions are actually using blockchain technologies for payments and settlement rather than as an experiment.

A lot of financial technology is foolhardy. Saying, 'We're going to kill banks. We're going to disrupt everything,' ignores some realities.

Some people would say we're being overly-conservative. But I say we're being realistic for our first year planning.

We are excited to become part of Instant Technologies. Instant's proven success in sales and marketing in the United States will better position us to meet the future growth needs of our European customers.

The virtues of the blockchain is that it would be that it's peer-to-peer settlement - no centralized settlement, no manipulation... And most importantly, there's nothing to capture. It's consensus based. It's stateless.

With private chains, you can have a completely known universe of transaction processors. That appeals to financial institutions that are wary of the bitcoin blockchain.