BlackRock's Maxwell Stein Backs Blockchain for 24/7 Markets at Avalanche Summit

BlackRock's Maxwell Stein said blockchain is the mechanism that would allow financial markets to operate around the clock, remarks that avax surfaced on Sept 28 from Avalanche Summit.

Stein addressed what it would take to move trading to a 24/7, 365-day schedule, noting that conventional market infrastructure still closes even as money keeps moving. His answer to that gap was blockchain.

The comments land amid a stretch of institutional activity on Avalanche. Paxos went live on the network on Sept 17, connecting its regulated infrastructure to more than 650 institutions, while New York Life Investment Management brought its first tokenized fund — a U.S. High Yield Corporate Bond Strategy — onchain through Centrifuge the same day. On Sept 24, Tassat Group's Lynq Network migrated institutional settlement onto an Avalanche L1, claiming 65% faster processing and sub-second finality. A Hyundai Card stablecoin pilot on Avalanche cut transfer times by more than 96%, according to an American Banker report.

Stein also spoke at Avalanche Summit in New York about wallet-level access on Sept. 16, remarks Descout covered at the time.

What to watch

Stein's 24/7 framing adds a specific target to Avalanche's institutional pitch: continuous settlement rather than episodic trading windows. Whether any of the network's newly onboarded partners commit to round-the-clock operations is the next signal to track.