Symbiont’s not alone in trying to bring the blockchain to Wall Street. Other firms investigating finance-related uses of blockchain include Digital Asset Holdings LLC, headed by former JPMorgan Chase & Co. banker Blythe Masters; Nasdaq OMX Group Inc.; Ripple Labs; and the New York Stock Exchange.

In June, Symbiont raised $1.25 million from a group of investors including former NYSE chief Duncan Niederauer; former Citadel LLC executive Matt Andresen; two co-founders of high- frequency trading firm Getco LLC, Dan Tierney and Stephen Schuler; and SenaHill.

Niederauer said digitizing private equity transactions would bring transparency to the process of issuing shares and tracking who owns what. His old rival Nasdaq agrees, and hopes to use blockchain to help shareholders of privately held companies track their stakes beginning in the fourth quarter.

“Having the issuance and cap tables done the way we saw this morning will be very useful to investors,” Niederauer said in an interview. He said any concern about bitcoin -- which has been linked to drug dealers and other shady transactions -- is misguided when thinking about how blockchain can be used for finance.

“People’s first reaction to bitcoin is it sounds a bit edgy and dangerous,” he said. But the applications that can be developed for the blockchain are where the real interest is, he added. “That was my main interest in investing in the company.”

Eoin Treacy's view

I received a letter yesterday telling me that my daughters medical records could possibly have been accessed in a hacking attack on UCLA’s records department. This highlights the fact that any database is a target for thieves regardless of whether the event makes headlines or not. 

This is also why the blockchain is so important. It provides a ledger of transactions which cannot be hacked because it of its cryptographic nature and the weight of historical information that will overlay any entry once it has been made. In order to change a record you would need to change every other record that comes after it which creates billions of permutations and is virtually impossible. It is only a matter of time before blockchain moves mainstream in both recording and protecting our data. Unfortunately, I do not yet know of an appropriate investment vehicle.