Australia's Securities Exchange (ASX) has been fined A$20.5 million after abandoning a failed attempt to replace its core CHESS trading platform with a blockchain-based system, and then misleading investors by claiming the project was "progressing well" in February 2022. The project collapsed due to poorly defined objectives, scope creep, and unresolved questions about whether blockchain technology could actually handle the demands of a stock exchange. The debacle also had broader implications, as the blockchain community had widely cited the ASX's adoption as validation of the technology's suitability for mission-critical financial infrastructure.
