Chief Executive, R3
London, UK
Joined May 2007
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Richard Gendal Brown retweeted
R3 CEO @gendal and CRO @DigbyTry on why compliance is the condition for institutional assets coming onchain, not a cost of doing it:
"Some of the biggest names in TradFi that want to come onto the platform and bring their assets on, they wouldn't consider it unless those gates were in place."
"Friction always sounds bad, doesn't it? But ultimately, it's what makes the wheel go round."
In Part 2 of Stacking Corda Ep. 2, the team behind Corda Protocol explains why each one is there on purpose, and what the biggest issuers need to see before they bring assets onchain.
"When I look at the issuer side of our business, some of the biggest names in TradFi that want to come onto the platform and bring their assets on, they wouldn't consider it unless those gates were in place."
"One of the benefits of asynchronous settlement is that the investor is always guaranteed to have the assets backing that token."
"We use SPL token standard instead of Token-2022. While Token-2022 can offer more control guarantees, it severely limits how the user can use the token and underlying assets."
Richard Gendal Brown retweeted
"The genius of the mutual fund or the ETF for me is it allowed us to create, if you like, a virtual box."
R3 CEO @gendal on why tokenization is an old idea in a new wrapper, and why the fund structure institutions already trust is the right starting point for vaults onchain.
"Vaults are the future of funds."
Wallets and vaults both hold assets onchain, but they solve different problems.
In Part 1 of Stacking Corda Ep. 2, the @inside_r3 team behind Corda Protocol explains why a vault behaves less like a wallet and more like the fund wrappers institutions already use.
"Something people get wrong is they think tokenization is a brand new technology. For me, it's just another derivation, it's another variation on what was invented 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago with the advent of the ETF." @gendal
"A wallet is very much an individual concept that's basically securing assets that are onchain, but it's used for signing for those assets. Whereas a vault is very much a sort of a container, so it's containing the assets, representing them onchain."
"A wallet is a single point of failure. With vaults, we have multi-signature and time locks, which means that even if one of the signer keys gets compromised, the underlying asset remains protected." @SztukaSzymon
"In a market that's come to value control and transparency, vaults give you a lot more of both." @DigbyTry
Richard Gendal Brown retweeted
Institutional-grade from day one.
@HalbornSecurity performed the smart contract security audit for Corda Protocol and signed off the evidence pack from our mainnet key ceremony.
Blue chip partners for blue-chip vaults.
I feel vindicated now! Last month when reviewing the Base Offering Memorandum that underpins RWA tokenisations on @Cordaxyz I queried the “reference chain” definition and said “I’m not sure it will necessarily be called mainnet-beta for much longer”. And the docs were changed to accommodate the possibility. Phew.
We hit gold when we hired @kostascrypto back in the day. And I still think his CordaCon appearance is the best introduction to ZKPs out there, even after all this time: youtube.com/watch?v=1tfVaDHt…
History of crypto agility. It started 10y ago.
With all the recent AI and quantum computing fears, everyone suddenly seems to be talking about cryptographic agility.
If you ever want to explore the history of cryptographic agility in decentralized ledgers and blockchains, arrange an interview with my team. We have some fascinating stories to share.
Back in 2016–2017, my team pioneered cryptographic agility as a fundamental design principle for blockchains, starting with R3 Corda.
We supported ECDSA (both secp256k1 and secp256r1), EdDSA, RSA, and SPHINCS, marking the first-ever support for a stateless post-quantum signature scheme in the history of blockchains and decentralized ledgers. This wasn’t just about supporting different algorithms. We were already preparing blockchain infrastructure for a post-quantum future.
And there’s a great story behind why some of the world’s largest banks and financial institutions were asking us for these capabilities a decade ago.
When I moved from London (R3 Corda) to Silicon Valley (Facebook’s Libra), I brought the same philosophy with me. I took cryptographic agility further, including the important architectural distinction between account addresses and authentication keys.
This separation, which makes key rotation and cryptographic upgrades much easier, subsequently became a design pattern adopted by several other blockchains. There’s also an interesting story behind why we considered it essential.
We carried these principles forward into Sui, which was designed with cryptographic agility from day one.
That foundation enabled us to introduce native social authentication through zkLogin, support multiple signature schemes, accommodate key aliases and post-quantum cryptography, and offer native multisig without additional gas overhead. Sui’s modular design from scratch allows magical things to happen.
Today, the broader blockchain community is finally recognizing how critical cryptographic agility will be in the age of AI and quantum. And while I’m genuinely happy to see this happening, I can’t help but smile.
Imagine watching an architectural principle you led almost 10 years ago suddenly become one of the industry’s hottest topics.
Sometimes the most important innovations aren’t the ones that make headlines when they’re introduced. They’re the ones that quietly prepare the infrastructure for a future nobody else is thinking about yet.
Hire good cryptographers, the top of the world if you can, and you will be 10y ahead waving 👋 to the future.
Raised by Satoshi 😉
Richard Gendal Brown retweeted
We spent a decade building private networks with the world’s largest banks.
That’s exactly why we know where capital markets are heading: open, public rails.
The customers are already onchain.
Corda is being built on @solana to bring institutional yield to eligible investors, alongside the DeFi markets they already use.
@Mcdtv on the case for public rails on @thinkingcrypto.
Richard Gendal Brown retweeted
As opposed to the current world, which runs on code that almost nobody has read.
Richard Gendal Brown retweeted
Was great to chat w Tony about the R3 journey and what’s next w @Cordaxyz
From Private to Public Blockchains! R3 Corda & Solana Team Up!
WATCH ▶️ youtu.be/YOfMC07W9Xw
Todd McDonald, Co-Founder of R3, joined me to discuss the future of blockchain adoption, the evolving roles of public and private blockchains, R3 Corda’s partnership with Solana, and the outlook for asset tokenization and on-chain financial markets.
#solana #blockchain #tokenization
Richard Gendal Brown retweeted
A decade working alongside the world’s largest financial institutions taught us what blue chip really means.
Our CEO @gendal on the standard every asset meets before it reaches Solana through @cordaxyz.
Blue chip is a standard, not a label: real yield, a trusted originator, an asset that sits in custody.
That’s the bar for everything Corda brings to @Solana.
@gendal on @Genfinity:
"We want to signal, given @inside_r3's long heritage in that space, that what we're doing is identifying, curating the best assets of most interest to onchain investors and making them available on chain."
Richard Gendal Brown retweeted
In our docs we tend to use more often the term Financial Instrument vs Token.
I agree, the term token does not do enough justice to the process: unless we reduce the concept to a price, a symbol, a logo and numbers go up.
vulcan-forge-docs.alphaledge…
And maybe a good replacement for tokenisation could simply be "onchain issuance".
Idly wondering if I should ban the term 'tokenisation' at R3. The idea that merely taking an asset that already exists and turning it into a token is in any way valuable is maybe our industry's biggest comms failure.
The underlying asset has to be curated, perhaps even structured de novo. The good ones then need a committed high-capacity offchain liquidity backstop. Then the onchain representation needs to work seamlessly with onchain borrow/lend and liquidation. That's just table stakes. And this has to be done in full compliance with securities laws.
'Tokenisation' is so feeble a word to describe that process of creativity, product development and strategy.
But what word to use instead? Asset Activation? Unleashing? Enrichment?
Idly wondering if I should ban the term 'tokenisation' at R3. The idea that merely taking an asset that already exists and turning it into a token is in any way valuable is maybe our industry's biggest comms failure.
The underlying asset has to be curated, perhaps even structured de novo. The good ones then need a committed high-capacity offchain liquidity backstop. Then the onchain representation needs to work seamlessly with onchain borrow/lend and liquidation. That's just table stakes. And this has to be done in full compliance with securities laws.
'Tokenisation' is so feeble a word to describe that process of creativity, product development and strategy.
But what word to use instead? Asset Activation? Unleashing? Enrichment?
Onchain capital is flexible until it has to leave DeFi to find diversified yield. That’s the detour.
Corda is building a more direct route: blue chip RWA exposure designed for @Solana-native access, liquidity, and composability.
As we approach the launch of Corda Protocol I've spent a lot of time with the team on why a lot of tokenised RWAs seem to get issued and then just.... sit there... what are the commonalities amongst those that seem to take off versus those that don't? I know it _looks_ pretty simple but the table below was really useful in clarifying my own thinking about all the product features an RWA needs to have (a tokenised RWA _is_ a product)
For a decade, R3 has worked with banks, regulators and market infrastructure to bring real assets onto ledgers.
Tokenizing them was step one. Knowing which ones are worth holding onchain is the next.
@Cordaxyz sets out five tests for a tokenized blue chip.
Richard Gendal Brown retweeted
Wrapped up two weeks at KBW and Token and everywhere the vibe was onchain markets. Even heard a few times "RWAs saved our year."
Was great to share dets on what's coming on @Cordaxyz I had a few replies of "this sounds too good to be true." More soon...
unrelated, in replies are all the cool street signs I saw while wandering around Seoul, its a great city!
Thanks to @IOV_OWL for having me on @Genfinity this week. Was great to be back on!
Exclusive ⚡️ R3 spent a decade building with the world’s largest financial institutions. Now that infrastructure connects to Solana.
In our latest interview, CEO Richard Brown said R3 is preparing to launch Corda Protocol on Solana, beginning with a yield vault alongside an unnamed top-tier bank.
@inside_r3 is targeting a full launch ahead of Solana Breakpoint this November, with instant liquidity planned as part of the rollout.
Corda networks can now connect to Solana mainnet in production, allowing institutions to use Solana to notarize private transactions and bridge tokenized assets to onchain investors.
Full interview with Richard Brown, CEO of R3:
Richard Gendal Brown retweeted
In the war for capital between everything-platforms, bet on the onchain-native approach to capture a bigger piece of the upside. Whoever has access to the means of DeFi primitives controls the fate of internet capital markets.
Hyped to bring deeper DeFi composability to assets on @Cordaxyz with @formation
you know the chain @solana
Richard Gendal Brown retweeted
EXCLUSIVE: Solana's Orca merges with Loopscale in push to finance AI, robotics and defense theblock.co/news/defi/2026-1…
Richard Gendal Brown retweeted
Exclusive ⚡️ R3 spent a decade building with the world’s largest financial institutions. Now that infrastructure connects to Solana.
In our latest interview, CEO Richard Brown said R3 is preparing to launch Corda Protocol on Solana, beginning with a yield vault alongside an unnamed top-tier bank.
@inside_r3 is targeting a full launch ahead of Solana Breakpoint this November, with instant liquidity planned as part of the rollout.
Corda networks can now connect to Solana mainnet in production, allowing institutions to use Solana to notarize private transactions and bridge tokenized assets to onchain investors.
Full interview with Richard Brown, CEO of R3: