Hedera's Leemon Baird explores how distributed ledger technology can reshape the financial sector. A key opportunity lies in enabling multiple financial institutions to establish interconnected systems and frameworks. Rather than operating in silos, banks and financial services can leverage DLT infrastructure to streamline cross-institutional transactions, enhance settlement speeds, and build more transparent payment networks. The ability to coordinate between institutions at scale addresses a fundamental pain point in modern finance—interoperability. As major financial players evaluate blockchain solutions, Hedera's focus on enterprise-grade performance positions it as a potential backbone for institutional partnerships. $HBAR reflects growing interest in practical DLT applications beyond retail cryptocurrency use cases.