Newswise — Nasdaq unveiled a demonstration of its blockchain technology called Nasdaq Linq at the Money 20/20 event in Las Vegas. The digital ledger is the first of its kind, and has the capabilities to leverage a blockchain to facilitate the issuance, and catalog and record transfers of shares of privately-held companies on The NASDAQ Private Market.

Cornell University computer science professor Emin Gun Sirer is a world-renowned expert on cryptocurrency and Bitcoin and his research spans operating systems, networking and distributed systems. He says it’s too early to tell if this is simply a cosmetic effort, or a genuine restructuring of the market infrastructure.

Bio: www.ece.cornell.edu/people/profile.cfm?netid=egs7

Sirer says: "It's great to see Wall Street realize the advantages blockchains offer, such as transparency and auditability for all.

“Time will tell whether these early efforts are just a cosmetic effort to attach a blockchain veneer to existing systems, or if they point to a genuine restructuring of the market infrastructure to make them genuinely more trustworthy.”