Settlement in a tokenized system is instant, though there's plenty to argue about what that actually means before we scare the treasury desk that needs $500m for a repo. And its ledgers never close, which scares the hedge funds who enjoy a beer with their families on a Saturday.
Both can raise liquidity needs at first, depending on how settlement is set up. In current systems a large share of obligations is netted before settling, and only the net balance moves.
That doesn't mean you can't settle net on a blockchain. But netting needs a window in which obligations build up, and the faster things move the less there is left to net, so intraday funding and settlement peaks go up.
That extra requirement eases if the same balance gets reused several times during the day, although reuse depends on incoming payments arriving on time and shrinks in periods of stress, when everyone holds back their payments.
The other problem is that a balance sitting on one ledger is no use for paying on another until someone moves it. And the weekend has to be covered with whatever you already hold, because the money market is closed (I hope that changes soon).
The most lasting change will be that liquidity gets a price within the day. Today the shortest tenor that trades as a matter of course is one day, and even if that's just a standard by social convention and going shorter is theoretically viable, tell that to an industry that would have to change its whole operating model and every model built around it.
What happens between the open and the close is covered with firms' own buffers and with intraday lines that the custodian bank or the prime broker extends as part of the relationship.
If collateral can move in minutes, funding for a matter of hours becomes viable, and the moment you pay takes on a cost or a return.
The collateral that today sits spread across custodians and clearing houses just in case also comes down, because it can be sent when it's needed. Shortening the settlement cycle reduces counterparty exposure and margin requirements, and shifts that reduction into a greater need for immediate cash.
It's an exciting time to see whose balance sheets will hold up the system in the future.
Setting up a Mac mini with Apple Messages that uses a local model to help the wife troubleshoot and add movies & shows to Plex was somehow among the top 3 thing I did in the past couple years lmao
Set one fixed window for routine fan messages instead of checking them between edits. Try it for a week and see whether you get a full filming or editing block back.