Goldman Sachs announced that it was looking into the use of NFTs, particularly as it relates to the “tokenization of real assets.” Among the many potential real-world uses, real estate and other big-ticket items can be bundled up and tokenized. A major financial player like Goldman Sachs stepping up in that arena would be highly consequential, says one fintech CEO.

“The way that the industry is moving, tokenization could be a gamechanger in the financial sector. Imagine the opportunities, just in real estate alone, that would emerge with tokenization mainstreaming. It would allow middle-class families a way to invest in financial instruments that would have, not long ago, been completely outside of their reach,” said Richard Gardner, CEO of Modulus, a US-based developer of ultra-high-performance trading and surveillance technology that powers global equities, derivatives, and digital asset exchanges.

"We are actually exploring NFTs in the context of financial instruments, and actually there the power is actually quite powerful. So we work on a number of things," Mathew McDermott, Global Head of Digital Assets at Goldman Sachs, said at the Financial Times Crypto and Digital Assets Summit.

“In many ways, the blockchain movement is one which is not just completely revolutionizing the financial sector, but it is evening the playing field. Between the movement for a digital currency and payment mechanism which is not beholden to government or big tech, and the ability to tokenize assets, blockchain-based technologies are changing our everyday financial lives in a way that we haven’t seen since the advent of consumer credit,” noted Gardner.

Modulus is known throughout the financial technology segment as a leader in the development of ultra-high frequency trading systems and blockchain technologies. Modulus has provided its exchange solution to some of the industry’s most profitable digital asset exchanges, including a well-known multi-billion-dollar cryptocurrency exchange. Over the past twenty years, the company has built technology for the world’s most notable institutions, with a client list which includes NASA, NASDAQ, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Barclays, Siemens, Shell, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago.

“Technology has always been the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from. If you can build a technology which improves lives or business processes, you’ll find success. Now, blockchain is bringing that concept to a brand new level,” said Gardner.