Wall Street warns human-built markets can’t keep up with machine-speed trading

MarketsShareShare this articleCopy linkX iconX (Twitter)LinkedInFacebookEmailWall Street warns human-built markets can’t keep up with machine-speed tradingLegacy financial systems face pressure as tokenization and real-time trading push markets toward always-on, automated infrastructure, panelists at Consensus in Miami said on Tuesday.By Helene Braun, AI Boost|Edited by Stephen Alpher May 5, 2026, 3:19 p.m. 3 min readMake preferred on What to know: Wall Street and crypto executives warn that markets are nearing a breaking point as 24/7, machine-driven trading collides with legacy systems built for slower, human-paced processes.Blockchain-based tokenization promises real-time, continuous settlement that could keep both individual and corporate cash fully invested until the moment it is spent, reducing idle balances across the system.Panelists said the main obstacle is not transaction speed but the lack of shared governance standards and rules, which large institutions see as essential to maintaining reliability and trust as markets are rebuilt for automated capital flows.Miami Beach, FL — A growing group of Wall Street and crypto executives say the financial system is heading toward a breaking point, as markets shift from human-paced processes to machine-driven activity that runs around the clock.“We’re moving to a world where transactions happen at a speed no human can track,” Sandy Kaul, head of digital assets and innovation at Franklin Templeton, said during a panel on the future of capital markets at Consensus in Miami on Tuesday. At the same time, “almost every process in capital markets today was built for humans, and none of them will stand up to what’s coming,” she added.The tension between those two ideas — faster, automated markets and legacy systems designed for manual oversight — sat at the center of the conversation.For decades, financial markets have relied on layered processes to handle trades. Systems batch transactions, reconcile records and settl…

Wall Street warns human-built markets can’t keep up with machine-speed trading

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