This is Accenture's report into the project as commissioned by the ASX. I encourage people to read it as it goes into the technical and management details as to why it failed: <a href="https://www2.asx.com.au/content/dam/asx/markets/clearing-and-settlement-services/asx-chess-replacement-application-delivery-review-2022.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www2.asx.com.au/content/dam/asx/markets/clearing-and...</a>
I can’t remember what thread it was, but someone here commented recently that when these consultancies produce this vapourware, it’s effectively just an expensive study to determine the viability of a product.<p>In this case, $250m seems to me a reasonable sum to ensure that the ASX will never again get tangled up in crypto pipedreams.
It's hard to give non-Australian investors a sense of how bizarre this was. The ASX still provides CHESS holding statements (updates when you transact shares, when codes change or you are otherwise issued new shares)... by post. On paper. There is no other option.<p>Before they fixed that they wanted to move CHESS to a blockchain. Wild.
The age of companies with terrible ideas wiping their arses with money like it's toilet paper has come to the end... for now.<p>How the smeg does an MVP or PoC for something like this even cost $250M?
What’s interesting is that the previous CEO of ASX left recently and said that the job is done, the tech is working and clients are testing - they just need to swap over in production - but he prefers the new CEO to be in drivers seat for that migration.
> Accenture highlighted governance flaws on both the ASX and delivery partner sides, including “inefficiencies in the delivery lifecycle through to testing, with siloed execution and reporting resulting in misaligned views of status on delivery progress, risks and issues.”<p>Sounds like the problem was mismanagement. Let's not blame crypto for everything.<p>I'm not saying blockchain was the answer to their problems, but it could have been a sub $10M mistake if not for the terrible management.
I wonder what this means for Digital Asset <a href="https://www.digitalasset.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.digitalasset.com/</a>.<p>The ASX brought 5.4% of digital asset and from what I heard, they were a core part of building the system. <a href="https://www.ledgerinsights.com/asx-150-million-in-blockchain-stock-settlement/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ledgerinsights.com/asx-150-million-in-blockchain...</a>
> The report estimated the application software for the new system is still only 63 per cent complete, with an “uncertain” timeline to completion<p>Does anyone actually believe the level of precision coming from this report? I bet good money that remaining “37%” would take way longer to complete than that supposed “63%” did.<p>Oh, Accenture created the report, so it must be accurate, never mind. /s
From the Australian Financial Review two weeks ago:<p>"Unfortunately, ASX management and its board of directors have proven over the past seven years they do not have the technical skills to manage a large-scale technology project or the self-awareness to know that what they are doing is investing in a technology dead end."<p><a href="https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.afr.com%2Fchanticleer%2Fasx-s-drawn-out-chess-replacement-is-killing-innovation-20221102-p5bv0s" rel="nofollow">https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.afr.com%2Fchanticl...</a>
This project was stupid from the start, I could never see it working. It never made any sense using ‘distributed ledger technology’, the ASX are the central authority and they want to be in that position… Making anything distributed isn’t actually useful to them or people who interact with them… They just got caught up in ‘blockchain hype’ and clearly there were some sales people in the right place, at the right time. Some people must have got away with serious cash from this boondoggle.
What drives me nuts is that, as far as I can tell, all the players get to keep their share of that $250 million. There’s no talk of sanctions, nobody seems to be losing their job, the board is still pulling down their fees.<p>So many large Australian institutions have been captured by consultants, snake oil peddelers and grifters, all with their hands in the jar. It’s embarrassing.
If you're interested in some lower level details this article gets into what was seen as the limitations of the technology <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/17/asx_blockchain_reading_project_paused/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/17/asx_blockchain_readin...</a> .<p>It's not clear to me whether the $A250M was the direct costs to the Exchange (ie invoices + ASX staff time) or the value which the Exchange was carrying the software on their books at ?
I wonder why Australia even bothered. They have instant bank transfers, so it's not like the tech to do shit instantly, on scale doesn't exist.
> Accenture highlighted governance flaws on both the ASX and delivery partner sides, including “inefficiencies in the delivery lifecycle through to testing, with siloed execution and reporting resulting in misaligned views of status on delivery progress, risks and issues.”<p>They should have used blockchain - put your daily status and reporting on a blockchain and have it visible to everyone in a decentralized manner. No more silos or misaligned views. This is one of the many problems that blockchain solves.
I see this as another example of a failed migration project that focuses on non-functional requirements of the system, at the expense of functional requirements.<p>Time and time again we see the same result in projects costing taxpayers or shareholders millions. There seems to be no shortage of those (at every level) ready to believe that one can just apply some “technologies” to very complex legacy systems that will result in something new and effective.
> The report estimated the application software for the new system is still only 63 per cent complete<p>I wonder how they came up with this oddly specific number.
Where did the money go??<p>Seems like the delivery partners were:<p>* Digital Asset’s Daml smart contract development capability<p>* VMware’s DLT (blockchain) platform<p>Does anyone have any information about those?
Blockchain is a valid solution for fast settlement clearing between market participants. JPM and Visa have already proven it their private blockchains. NASDAQ among others are experimenting with their own private blockchains.<p>JPM use of their own Onyx blockchain makes the repo market far more efficient: <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-10/jpmorgan-using-blockchain-to-move-billions-in-repo-market-trades" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-10/jpmorgan-...</a><p>Visa B2B Connect for global payments: <a href="https://developer.visa.com/capabilities/vba" rel="nofollow">https://developer.visa.com/capabilities/vba</a><p>I get it, blockchain makes for a flashy clickbait headline. There are bigger problems in the project than the selection of blockchain as a solution.<p>- Project was 63% with an uncertain timeline to completion. That alone is a red flag for any enterprise project.<p>- The teams involved weren't communicating with each other resulting in confusion. aka "misaligned views".<p>- When it comes to scalability, there is no way to rate limit participants, so they could screw the system given it couldn't process more than 100k transactions (not sure what rate since it is unspecified).<p>There are multitude of issues that justify canning the project.<p>For those unaware ASX used VMWare's DLT blockchain: <a href="https://www.vmware.com/welcome/asx.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.vmware.com/welcome/asx.html</a>. There's nothing "scammy" about it.<p>I'm unsure of why people in the comments here are still confused between cryptocurrency and blockchain especially since they have distinct names. If you're gonna point out incompetence, you have to realize your own faults as well.<p>Anyone who claims to have enough information to make a determination about blockchain tech being the cripple here doesn't have the information required to make it given the problems pointed out. There's plenty of financial industry users making use of it already.<p>Lots of tunnel vision below, but that's unsurprising given the hate against crypto (which people below often confuse with blockchain). I remember the same bias against K/V dbs (NoSQL). People would blame the tech choice rather than the circumstances. It's easier for certain types to blame tech for everything then hail it when the project succeeds even though it was only one part of the equation.