The traditional T+2 settlement rules in the stock market really need to be phased out. Selling stocks on Monday and only being able to withdraw on Wednesday—the two-day gap period—causes hundreds of trillions of funds to be unnecessarily frozen in the clearing system, all just to complete the so-called "compliant delivery." It may be imperceptible to ordinary investors, but for high-frequency trading firms that rely on every second to make money, this is a huge cost black hole.

What’s interesting now is that some blockchain solutions based on zero-knowledge proof (ZK) technology are beginning to challenge this ancient model. Rather than promoting privacy, these solutions truly impress Wall Street with the promise of "T+0 instant settlement." How is this achieved? Because ZK technology can perform compliance verification at the moment of transaction confirmation, allowing the entire cumbersome clearing process to be directly replaced by smart contract code—those clearing institutions that rely on collecting transit fees may need to rethink their business models.

Looking at it from another perspective, if funds can shift from a "two-day cycle" to "instant transfer," how terrifying would the efficiency of the released capital be? For institutional investors, this is equivalent to each transaction gaining additional utilization opportunities. This efficiency improvement is more convincing to financial institutions than any grand technological propaganda to try new settlement methods.