Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman said that the exchange intends to apply blockchain to financial market infrastructure and become a disrupter in the space.
What Happened: According to a Tuesday Fortune report, Friedman said that, currently, "[it] is just not in a position to be able to support the level of trading activity that we experience in the equities and options markets."
Nasdaq is purportedly dealing with 3 million messages a second, 62 billion messages in eight hours.
Despite the current state of the crypto market, Friedman recognizes the potential of blockchain technology — the decentralized ledger protocols that cryptocurrencies rely on for their bookkeeping.
Why It Matters: She said that "over the next decade, there will be a greater understanding of how we can make the markets more efficient and effective using the blockchain."
The stock exchange is, in fact, "really focused on how we can bring this technology into the markets and be a disrupter ourselves."
Talking about cryptocurrencies as an asset class, Friedman said that she views market manipulation as is one of the major challenges.
She believes Nasdaq's market surveillance technology is in use by at least nine crypto exchanges, but crypto markets are operating in discrete circles today.