The former vice president of North American investment banking at JPMorgan Chase has said that blockchain “may be the key to avoiding the next global financial crisis," the China Economic Times reports today, July 23.

Pang Huadong, currently an honorary academic advisor of the Asian Blockchain Institute, said that his experience at JPMorgan during the peak of the 2008 financial crash led him to think that blockchain could be the pivotal technology for establishing transparency and trust in the global economic system:

“[When I began to work at JPMorgan in 2007,] 13 people managed [the bank’s] $40+ billion [assets].... when the 2008 financial crisis was at its worst, [the] average daily loss was $300 million. It is only gradually that I understood that blockchain technology may be the key to avoiding the next global financial crisis.”

Huadong added that while the technology is still “at a very early stage,” its development prospects are “limitless.” He isolated blockchain’s cornerstone innovation –– that of establishing disintermediated and transparent systems –– as having the potential to radically reduce global financial risks and “establish trust mechanisms at the lowest cost.”

While the Chinese government’s policy remains tough on decentralized cryptocurrencies, blockchain has been gaining increasing traction with political, academic, and financial sector leaders –– with even the country’s president Xi Jinping openly praising its potential this spring.

Just last week, the official newspaper of China’s Ministry of Science and Technology reported that the country would lead an international research group on the standardization of Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain technology.

On July 16, the deputy director of China’s IT Ministry urged the country to “unite” forces to foster blockchain as a “core” technology for the new digital economy, and advocated easing institutional constraints in order to optimize the environment for its integration.