SmartCon Perspective | Blockchain Standardization: Driving Seamless Interconnectivity in the Digital Economy

Chainlink's annual flagship conference, SmartCon, opened yesterday, bringing together numerous senior representatives from traditional finance and leading DeFi protocols in New York. At the conference, Jack Pouderoyen, Head of Digital Asset Strategy at Swift, Sandra Ro, CEO of the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), and Christoph Schneider, Technical Lead at Glyph, discussed the standardization and interoperability of the digital asset economy. Pouderoyen pointed out that the fragmentation of the blockchain ecosystem remains a major obstacle for traditional financial institutions entering Web3, and unified communication and data standards are crucial for connecting different blockchain networks. Swift helps financial institutions access on-chain markets while leveraging existing infrastructure by extending existing standards such as ISO 20022 to blockchain data fields. Ro stated that GBBC is promoting cross-border standards harmonization and has joined the ISO TC307 Blockchain Committee to accelerate global standards development. She pointed out that establishing unified standards is not only a compliance requirement but also key to driving sustainable industry growth. Schneider introduced GLEIF's Verifiable Legal Entity Identity (vLEI) system, which aims to provide a common organizational identity standard for various blockchains, enhancing trust and compliance. He believes that a globally universal identity standard will become the anchor of trust in a multi-chain interconnected ecosystem. Participants unanimously agreed that standardization and innovation should proceed in parallel, with the standard system gradually improved through experimentation and verification. Currently, Chainlink and GLEIF have jointly launched integration testing of vLEI and Chainlink CCID, demonstrating the feasibility of cross-platform identity interoperability. Furthermore, in the coming year, Swift plans to launch a prototype digital asset standardization platform, while GBBC will drive more regulatory and market-level applications.