How Swift Actually Works and Why Crypto Gets It Wrong | Tom Zschach

Like I'm four years old, how does Swift work?

It's a secure financial messaging network.

So let's talk about what it doesn't do.

It doesn't issue tokens.

It doesn't store value.

It doesn't do settlement.

It's not a custodian.

It's the fabric that ties all of those different institutions and participants together.

If you go talk to a treasurer, a corporate treasurer and a S&P 500 company, right? And you said to them, hey, we got this new way of doing payments.

It's faster and cheaper.

It might not always work.

There's some risk in that.

They'll smile like you just smiled, right? They have a really nice smile on their face.

But that's really interesting.

Come back to me when it works.

What people miss is what they want is certainty.

If I'm instructing $50 million into Singapore, it has to work.

You don't have an alternative.

I want to start by reading a tweet from one of my favorite Anon accounts, which is Gwart.

I'm going to read the tweet.

He or she wrote, I asked a Ripple holder why I should invest in XRP.

They said, imagine being able to invest in Swift.

To which I said, OK, why would I want to invest in Swift? And they said, do you know how Swift works? And I said, no.

Do you know how Swift works? And they said, no.

So my question is, like I'm four years old, how does Swift work?