The DTCC Just Changed EVERYTHING! Why It's All in on Blockchain & Tokenization! | Nadine Chakar

**Nadine Chakar** (0:00)
We are enhancing what we have, not replacing it. And Blockchain is that perfect medium to allow us to do that. But in order to leverage Blockchain, you need tokens. And in order to get the most of the programmability of these tokens, you need Spark contracts. So as you can see, we're sort of building these layers that help the traditional Rails become more efficient and more user-friendly to all involved.

**Tony Edward** (0:23)
Do you believe that the world's largest asset class, real estate, will also go on chain eventually?

**Nadine Chakar** (0:27)
Blockchain is right for that.

**Tony Edward** (0:35)
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Hey, folks, welcome into the Thinking Crypto Podcast. I'm Tony Edward.

**Amanda Wickroft** (3:02)
And I'm Amanda Wickroft.

**Tony Edward** (3:03)
And joining us is Nadine Chakar, who's the Global Head of DTCC Digital Assets. The DTCC is the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry.
Nadine, it's great to have you.

**Nadine Chakar** (3:17)
Thank you for having me. Very excited.

**Tony Edward** (3:19)
Yeah, Nadine, we are excited for this interview. We've talked a lot about the DTCC and all the great things you're doing with tokenization and more.
But I would love to kick it off with your background. Where do you hail from and how did you make your way into the TradFi industry?

**Nadine Chakar** (3:35)
So I actually grew up in a place called Beirut, Lebanon. So it's far, far away from the US. Came over to Boston to go to school and I've made a home and a career since Beirut. I started my career very earlier on at a firm called the Boston Company, which eventually became BNY Merlin after all these years. And I think it goes by BNY these days.
And had the opportunity of working in a couple of TradFi firms across. So I've been very fortunate. I've learned the business from the ground up, which really prepared me in a very unusual way, if you will, to get super interested in all things digital, all things crypto. And here we are.
The latest assignment before I totally moved into digital 100% was running the capital markets group at State Street, which is really where I had the epiphany that Bitcoin and everything digital could have a really deep impact on how capital markets operate worldwide. And here we are today.