Euroclear has walked away from a blockchain partnership with Paxos for the London gold bullion market that was set to go into live production later this year.
Both Euroclear and Paxos confirmed the dissolution of the relationship to Reuters.
Christine Vanormelingen, global head of communications and investor relations at Euroclear, told the newswire: "Not all of the startup collaborations come to a conclusive end, that is part of how you develop an innovation strategy. We remain committed to offering a solution to the London bullion market."
Euroclear's about face on the project comes as something of a surprise, having completed a second live pilot of the system with 16 market participants settling over 10,000 contracts across the Bankchain in April.
Euroclear is not entirely giving up on blockchain technology; it is one of seven founding shareholders of Liquidshare, which is aiming to use distributed ledgers to make post-trade operations more efficient for small and medium enterprises in Europe.
Paxos told Reuters it will continue to pursue its platform without Euroclear, which it plans to launch by 2018.
In a statement, the firm says: "Paxos confirmed it has decided to pursue its Bankchain Precious Metal product without its previously announced partner Euroclear. Paxos remains fully committed to launching Bankchain for precious metals. The product has been undergoing a series of customer tests and pilot programmes over the past year with market participants and is on schedule to launch by 2018."