Its already started. I mean, my estimate is that were going to see $1 billion come into the Ethereum ecosystem in 2016 alone, and the general estimates for the amount of money going into the entire blockchain ecosystem, including Bitcoin, is on the order of $10 billion. - Vinay Gupta (original CypherPunk member)
from what i understand huge consortium of financial institutions invested in R3 (Mike Hearn) using the ethereum programming
other financial institutions using the legacy open source linux hyperledger
ASX is testing this at the moment
bit hard to ignore other blockchains
how is it even a battle? I love bitcoin (first application of blockchain tech to create a money) and I don't see how these other efforts are competition at all. Banks want to keep their FIAT anyway, they're applying blockchain tech to other problems, like settlement of stock trade, tracking of asset ownership and the like. I applaud them because it can make the financial sector more efficient and above all: more transparent and therefore safer.