In “Capital That Never Sleeps,” Deal Box founder and CEO Thomas Carter examines how CFOs can improve cash forecasting and evaluate new ways to access liquidity outside market hours.
NORTH SHORE, OʻAHU
If a payment comes due on Saturday, how much cash does a company need to leave idle on Friday? In his essay Capital That Never Sleeps, Deal Box founder and CEO Thomas Carter examines how AI could help treasury teams spot a funding gap earlier and how tokenization could give them more ways to close it after traditional market hours. Read the essay (https://www.thomascarter.io/post/capital-that-never-sleeps-ai-tokenization-corporate-treasury)
In an HSBC-led pilot on the Canton Network, Uber used tokenized bank deposits to buy shares in a Franklin Templeton money market fund. The pilot gave Uber the ability to redeem part of those holdings over a weekend. That gives CFOs a measurable question. How much cash could stay invested and still be available when a payment comes due? HSBC pilot announcement (https://www.about.us.hsbc.com/newsroom/press-releases/uber-completes-pilot-of-a-first-ever-on-chain-liquidity-and-settlement-solution-on-a-public-network)
Through Token Clear, Carter helps finance teams model that trade-off. A treasury team can compare its current cash buffer with a scenario in which eligible investments can be redeemed after hours, then assess the effect on liquidity and yield. The team can also identify the controls it would need before acting, including which assets qualify, who can authorize a redemption, and what happens if settlement is delayed. Token Clear (https://tokenclear.io/)
“A business can run around the clock while its money waits for the banking system to reopen,” Carter said. “AI can help a treasury team see where capital could work harder. Tokenization can give that team more ways to act on what it finds.”
Cash forecasting remains a practical starting point. In the Association for Financial Professionals’ 2026 Treasury Benchmarking Survey, 49% of respondents cited cash and liquidity forecasting as a challenge, and 30% ranked AI and automation among their top five priorities. The World Bank Treasury has already put AI to work reconciling fixed-income securities data from third-party providers against issuer documents. AFP survey (https://www.financialprofessionals.org/training-resources/resources/survey-research-economic-data/Details/treasury-benchmarking) · World Bank Treasury case study (https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/2cae159c1151996f64f32144efa9ae72-0340012025/original/World-Bank-ASTRA-Case-Study-2025.pdf)
The infrastructure behind U.S. capital markets is changing as well. On October 28, the Depository Trust Company (DTC) launched a service that lets eligible participants convert supported securities between traditional and tokenized forms. DTC reported more than $114 trillion in assets under custody and 20 participants with signed access agreements at launch. In March, the SEC approved a Nasdaq rule change to allow eligible securities to trade in tokenized form under DTC’s pilot framework. BlackRock’s Larry Fink and Rob Goldstein have compared this stage of tokenization to the internet in 1996. DTCC launch announcement (https://www.dtcc.com/press-releases/2026/dtcc-tokenization-service-goes-live) · SEC approval order (https://www.sec.gov/files/rules/sro/nasdaq/2026/34-105047.pdf) · BlackRock essay (https://www.blackrock.com/gls-download/literature/article-reprint/larry-fink-rob-goldstein-economist-op-ed-tokenization.pdf)
For treasury teams considering Bitcoin, Carter treats it as a separate question for long-term reserve policy. Once a company has defined its operating liquidity needs, it can assess whether any allocation fits its investment policy, risk tolerance, and time horizon.
About Thomas Carter
Thomas Carter is the founder and CEO of Deal Box and has more than 30 years of experience in capital markets and entrepreneurship. He founded Equity Round, an early equity crowdfunding platform, in 2012 and Deal Box in 2016. Deal Box went on to become one of the first companies to tokenize private equity. His work spans capital formation, digital securities, and universal ID and provenance through True I/O.
Before his career in finance, Carter competed in skateboarding and surfing and helped shape the early wakeboarding industry. He was inducted into the WakeSports Hall of Fame in 2021 for his contributions as a wakeboarding innovator. He is the author of the forthcoming book The Programmable Capital Market.
Carter has appeared on the cover of SUCCESS magazine. His other media credits include Forbes, Fortune India, TIME, Money, Maxim, The CEO Magazine, USA Today, MSNBC, Bloomberg, and Entrepreneur. ThomasCarter.io (https://www.thomascarter.io/)
Media Contact Details
Shazir Mucklai
Imperium
shazir@imperium-pr.com
