Paxos cofounder explains why Wall Street's plumbing hasn't been ready for the coronavirus crisis

A financial crisis triggered by a global pandemic has exposed underlying problems on Wall Street and the market as a whole.

That's according to Paxos chief executive officer Charles Cascarilla, who made an appearance on the latest episode of The Scoop podcast with host Frank Chaparro. 

Cascarilla – who spent the most formative years of his career as a hedge fund investor at Cedar Hill Capital during the 2008-2009 financial crisis – talked about unexpected liquidity issues across assets, such as Treasury securities and CAT bonds, and the problematic plumbing at the heart of it all.

Cascarilla said that uncertainty of the pipes and plumbing added to the risk associated with volatility and the inability to price assets during an economic and health crisis. He said less risk can be created by knowing where one's assets are on a blockchain.

In this episode of The Scoop, Cascarilla walked us through how Paxos is trying to usurp the current plumbing of Wall Street alongside power hitters like Credit Suisse and Instinet with a new blockchain-based settlement platform. The episode also dug into conditions that could result in widespread bank failures and nationalization of the industry.

And of course, the discussion touched on bitcoin's role in a global crisis and whether the premier cryptocurrency emerges from this crisis period as digital gold. 

Episode 12 of Season 2 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with Frank Chaparro, Ryan Todd and Charles Cascarilla, CEO of Paxos.