The 12-week experiment found that wholesale cross-border digital currency transactions supported by blockchain technology can deliver fast and safe payments.

The Phase 1 report summarises the problem space, hypothesis, design and results of the experiment conducted in Phase I, which focused on a wholesale cross-border payments use case.

Phase 1 showed three key findings:

• Faster payments: In the test environment, transactions on the blockchain-enabled distributed ledger system settled under 15 seconds on average.
• Atomic settlement: The simulated ledger network enabled atomic settlement, meaning both sides of the simulated transactions were settled either simultaneously or not at all, and reducing the risks currently borne by counterparties.
• Safer and accessible transactions: The distributed ledger system design enabled payments on a 24/7/365 basis and supported objectives related to interoperability by enabling transactions across separate, homogeneous ledgers networks representing a variety of financial institutions, including central and private sector banks.

The purpose of the Guidance is to emphasise to virtual currency business entities that are either licensed under 23 NYCRR  Part 200 or chartered as a limited purpose trust company under the New York Banking Law the importance of blockchain analytics to effective policies, processes and procedures, including for example those relating to customer due diligence, transaction monitoring and sanctions screening.

New York Department of Financial Services Superintendent Adrienne A. Harris issued a press release on the FY23 budget, in which she referred to the new authority to collect supervisory costs from licensed virtual currency businesses as it does for banking and insurance companies. 

She said: "New York was the first to start licensing and supervising virtual currency companies, and we continue to attract more licensees and the most crypto startup funding of any state in the nation. This new authority will empower the Department to build staff with the capacity and expertise to best regulate and support this rapidly growing industry."