Introduction: The banking in the era of distributed ledgers Sabrina Leo and Ida Claudia Panetta; Part I. Why Pay Attention to Distributed Ledger Technology in Banking?: 1. Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies Claudio Di Ciccio; 2. The integration of distributed ledger technology in banking: state of the art in literature Sabrina Leo and Andrea Delle Foglie; Part II. Opportunities and Challenges in Crypto-Asset Regulation: 3. Some reflections on the proposed MiCA regulation Filippo Annunziata; 4. Crypto-assets in banks: between opportunities and legal uncertainties Andrea Daly; 5. Cyberlaundering, VASPs' regulation and AML policy response Antonio Adinolfi and Emanuela Giusi Gaeta; Part III. The Power of Distributed Ledgers in Payments: 6. DLT in payments: new course of history ahead? Alessandro Agnoletti and Giancarlo Sfolcini; 7. Central bank digital currency: rationales, design considerations, and implementation using the algorand blockchain technology Andrea Civelli, Co-Pierre Georg, Pietro Grassano and Naveed Ihsanullah; 8. Opportunities, challenges and design of CBDCs: the Italian approach to a new technology Silvia Attanasio and Paola Del Vitto; 9. A proposal for an Asia digital common currency (ADCC) applying distributed ledger technology (DLT) and blockchain technology (BCT) Taiji Inui and Wataru Takahashi; Part IV. Enabling Financial Inclusion and ESG with Distributed Ledger Technology: 10. Distributed ledger technology and financial inclusion Harish Natarajan and Biagio Bossone; 11. Banking, blockchain and ESG John Ho Hee Jung; Part V. A Further Look at DLT In Banking: Lessons Learned, Current Applications and Future Scenarios: 12. A look into the intermediaries of the metaverse: halfway between the present and the future Ida Claudia Panetta and Sabrina Leo; 13. The DLT landscape in banking: key features of prominent use cases through strengths and weaknesses Sabrina Leo and Ida Claudia Panetta.

'We are in the process of abandoning silo and central computer architectures in banking, while embracing cloud computing. In a comprehensive review of the issues to Leo, Panetta and colleagues point to the next big technological challenge in a detailed and comprehensive manner. It tackles key issues combining practitioner and academic views. This is a book that will be in every banker's shelf for many years to come. A must read for anyone who wants to prepare their financial institution for the future.' Bernardo Batiz-Lazo, Professor of Fintech History, Northumbria University and Research Professor, Universidad Anahuac, Mexico