Markets Media Group is pleased to announce that nominations are now open for the 2026 European Women in Finance Awards (EWIFA), which will take place on Thursday, October 8, 2026, at The Law Society in London. Please make sure to nominate your colleagues, clients, peers, and industry partners.

Nominate HERE by August 28.

Joanna Pamphilis, UniCredit

Now in its seventh year, EWIFA has recognized accomplished women from across the European financial services industry, including buy-side and sell-side trading desks, asset and wealth managers, bankers, securities exchanges, technology providers, corporate finance, venture capital firms, and start-ups.

Over the years, the program has honored standout leaders from across the region. Last year’s winners included Valérie Noël of Syz Group for Excellence in Crypto & Digital Assets; Eglantine Desautel of EuroCTP for CEO of the Year; and Joanna Pamphilis of UniCredit for Lifetime Achievement.

Eglantine Desautel, EuroCTP

As with all Markets Media awards programs, nominees are submitted by our readers, with shortlists and winners determined by the editorial team.

Speaking to Trader TV at the Fixed Income Leaders Summit in Boston, hosted by Worldwide Business Research (WBR), Malrait shares his views on the impact of the CT data and broader developments in direct market connectivity on the growth and sophistication of AI applications across fixed income and multi-asset trading, and looks at the lessons learned from the US’s TRACE.

In this episode

 What lessons can be learned from the US’s TRACE?

 Where will the UK and EU CTs impact desks?

 How might it fuel and drive AI data models?

 What this could mean for cross-asset workflows

#FILS2026 #FILSBoston #FixedIncome #Trading #ConsolidatedTape #AI

Ophelia Snyder had an unconventional route to becoming the co-founder of 21Shares alongside Hany Rashwan in 2018. 21Shares launched in Switzerland and introduced one of the world’s first ever physically backed crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) that year in Europe.

21Shares became the first issuer to launch crypto ETPs across multiple jurisdictions and grew to manage over $11bn in assets across 55 listed products by 30 September 2025. The following month  FalconX, the institutional digital asset prime brokerage, announced it had agreed to buy the asset manager.

Snyder told Markets Media that she was surprised by how much she loved the process of building a company and hitting all their targets was very satisfying.

Ophelia Snyder

“We were more successful than in our wildest dreams,” she said. “It was the honor of my life to  work with all those people, build the company, and contribute in some way to the evolution of the sector.”

FalconX completed the acquisition of 21Shares in November last year, resulting in the largest exit by a female founder in crypto according to Snyder. She explained that the sale was not a quick decision but the industry and the job description changed.

“The job went from being all about innovation and getting creative on product structures to being a lot about regulatory affairs and forming partnerships with institutions,” she added.

The 21X founders realized the company needed a different kind of leadership. They did not need to sell, according to Snyder, but began to search for a partner who could help the company build. She said: “It was all about positioning the company for the next stage and the decision to sell came later.”

In January 2025 Russell Barlow joined 21Shares as chief executive from UK asset manager abrdn, where he had been global head of alternative and multi-asset investments, and responsible for more than $200bn in assets. Following completion of the acquisition, Barlow has remained chief executive and 21Shares is independently managed under the FalconX umbrella.

FalconX completed the acquisition last November and Snyder left 21Shares the following month.

“Ultimately I decided it was time for me to move onto other things because my baby has grown and gone to college,” she added.  “If you try to keep your kids at home, you do them a disservice by not letting them blossom into who they are supposed to be.”

She believes the combined company is uniquely positioned for the next chapter of crypto, which is the convergence between traditional and decentralised finance. She added: “That seems to be panning out pretty well and I know our clients are happy.”

Systems thinking 

As an undergraduate Snyder studied Earth Systems at Stanford University and her first real job was making films, mostly about the ocean, for documentaries. She found that she loved the financial side of producing films and putting together all the numbers.

She then completed an MBA at NYU Stern and began working in banking, and said on her Substack that she genuinely thinks she has never been worse at a job in her life. However, she loved the numbers and the complicated financial structures.

Her unconventional background was very helpful, according to Snyder. She explained that it is useful to think things through from first principles when starting a business in a new sector.

“It turned out that if you are trying to do something that hasn’t been done before, starting from how things are done is not always the best,” she added. “Learning how to think deeply is probably the most essential skill.”

She has always enjoyed learning how structures make a system work, how money flows through a system effectively, how organizations work and how people work within them. Snyder argued that once people learn the relationships between all the components in systems they can do anything.

As a result, 21Shares built its infrastructure in-house, which gave the company more flexibility and speed to market, which became one of its main competitive advantages according to Snyder.

Hany Rashwan

Another part of the unconventional route to becoming a founder is that Snyder had not bought an ETF before launching 21Shares. The idea to form the company was inspired by her mother who became interested in crypto but found it too complicated to invest in the asset class. Many people thought Snyder and Rashwan were crazy for launching a crypto ETP issuer back in 2018 as it either could not be done, would not be allowed by the regulators, or obody would want to buy the products even if it did launch.

Snyder told Markets Media that they looked at 27 jurisdictions before landing on Switzerland due to its history of neutrality and the ability to issue a product n European markets.

“The geographic expansion was slow and painful,” added Snyder. “It took us seven years to open the UK market.”

Crypto potential

Snyder believes the crypto market has completely changed in the last year. For example, crypto is becoming an asset class that fund managers cannot ignore, which Snyder said is “a really important shift in mentality.”

“Crypto is becoming infrastructure in a lot of really interesting ways such as stablecoins, DTTC’s  clearing product, JP Morgan’s tokenized deposits, and the list goes on,” she added.

Her bull case for crypto is that it becomes part of the critical path dependency for major financial institutions. She loves being involved in crypto and believes there is nothing more exciting than the combination of artificial intelligence and blockchain, which is going to change the face of capital markets. Snyder gave the example of the initial public offering of SpaceX, ElonMusk’s artificial intelligence and rocket company, as a tiny glimpse of what capital markets could look like in the future.

“You are seeing perpetuals and prediction markets, allowing for pre-IPO price discovery and exploring the line between a public and private company,” she added. “Tokenization doesn’t do anything unless you have sufficient liquidity and it doesn’t intrinsically aid in price discovery.”

Raghu Yarlagadda, chief executive of FalconX, said in a statement when the acquisition completed last November that the combination of FalconX’s institutional trading and risk management platform with 21Shares’ leadership in ETPs puts the firm in an even stronger position to accelerate innovation and broaden access to digital assets.

Russell Barlow, 21Shares

Barlow told Finews at the beginning of this year that 2025 had been the best year for 21Shares in terms of revenues and identifying new growth markets was a priority. He said in the article: “Operationally, the challenge was to leverage FalconX’s infrastructure in a way that allows us to generate synergies in growth and revenues.”

Eventually, Snyder may found another company but she is currently enjoying writing, reflecting on her experience at 21Shares and advising start ups. Her advice to new founders is that the job description is to make hard choices and they should focus on the few big bets that need to be right for a company to be successful, and not stress about the micro decisions.

“If and when I do this again, I will build from a place of using everything that I’ve learned,” she said.

Exchange-traded flows in the U.S exceeded $1 trillion by 17 June 2026, boosted by the launch of new ETFs on SpaceX following the record initial public offering (IPO) of Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence and space company.

SpaceX’s IPO raised a total of $85.7bn, overtaking the $18.4bn raised by social network Facebook in 2012, the previous largest U.S. tech company IPO. The total volume on the first day of trading on Friday 12 June 2026 was 522.1 million shares for $85.3bn, according to data provider BMLL, with a closing price of $160.95, 19.2% above the offer price.

Eric Balchunas, Bloomberg Intelligence

Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, highlighted that 11 leveraged SpaceX ETFs from seven issuers were launched on Monday 15 June 2026, the trading day following the IPO listing. Balchunas said on X: “One of these is gonna be set for life rich, a few will eat and a few will starve and die. It’s basically ETF Survivor.”

A standard ETF aims to accurately track the price movement of an index or basket. In contrast, leveraged single stock ETFs aim to amplify the daily price movement of the underlying stock. For example, a single-stock ETF with 2x leverage will double the daily increase or decrease in the share price.

By the end of the first day, the 11 leveraged SpaceX ETFs had traded more than $1bn in aggregate.

HUGE first day in the 2x SpaceX Derby w/ a combined volume of over $1b. Notable that LeverageShares (who isn't nearly as big in US) is out to such a big lead, $281m makes it the biggest first day since $IBIT. Even $ETHA and $DRAM didn't do that much. And it had to share the… pic.twitter.com/gAY0aEXuPF

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) June 16, 2026

Leverage Shares 2X Long SpaceX Daily ETF (SPCH) traded $281m, which was the biggest first day since BlackRock launched its Bitcoin ETF in January 2024, despite having to share demand with the other 10 ETFs.

“Also the fact that the least among them still got $26m is bonkers,” added Balchunas. “For context if you launch an ETF and it trades $1m on first day you are ecstatic.”

On its next day of trading SPCH traded $1.3bn, which Balchunas said is record volume for a second day. In contrast,  BlackRock’s Bitcoin traded $500m on its second day.

Leverage Shares by Themes launched SPCH and the Leverage Shares 2X Short SpaceX Daily ETF (SSPC), to provide market participants with a complete toolkit to navigate the volatility, momentum, and opportunity that often accompany landmark public listings. Both funds are actively managed and use swaps, options, and other derivatives to provide efficient leveraged exposure.

In May this year, Leverage Shares by Themes became the first ETF issuer to launch a leveraged ETF tied to a newly public company immediately following the IPO with Cerebras Systems, the artificial intelligence chip manufacturer, according to the firm.

Paul Marino, Themes ETFs

Paul Marino, chief revenue officer of Themes ETFs, told Markets Media: “We always want to be first to market and have an advantage. We did very well with Cerebras and had high volumes.”

The issuer wanted to launch the SpaceX ETFs on the same day as the shares started trading to provide access to retail investors as quickly as possible. However, there was pushback from exchanges according to Marino.

“It is the largest IPO in the world and most important deal that has ever happened,” he added. “There is a lot of positivity around SpaceX and people want to be involved.”

Marino argued that a differentiator for Themes ETFs’ SpaceX funds is that the issuer has the lowest fees at 0.75%. He said the issuer prices every ETF well below the industry average and its competitors.

Themes ETFs also aims to launch leveraged ETFs on the other large technology IPOs in the pipeline as soon as possible after the shares start trading, as the firm expects similar demand.

“We are very excited,” Marino added. “Let the games begin.”

The LeverageShares 2x SpaceX ETF $SPCH did $4b of volume by itself last week, making it the biggest first week of trading for an ETF ever. Better than the first week for $IBIT, $DRAM, $BITO, you name it. And further it did it in 4 days not 5 (bc fri was a holiday). Amazing. https://t.co/FxDVlqhSVC

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) June 20, 2026

SpaceX joins existing ETFs

Defiance ETFs, which specializes in thematic, income, and leveraged ETFs, also launched long and short 2x leveraged SpaceX ETFs. Brendan Cavanaugh, chief strategy officer at Defiance ETFs, told Markets Media this was the first single stock ETF it had been able to offer so close to an IPO.

Defiance also had an existing space-themed leveraged ETF, which it updated on the IPO date to include exposure to SpaceX. Cavanaugh said: “We were the first issuer to be able to provide two times SpaceX exposure on IPO day.”

The number of ETFs that held SpaceX went from 4 to 40 to now 120 in a couple days (few billion total). These are all active ETFs choosing to buy, not indexes (they coming later). Here's a look at the list sorted by new buy, $JEPQ (the 2nd largest active ETF in world) at the top.… pic.twitter.com/KcqbW12B4J

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) June 16, 2026

In addition, WisdomTree said in a statement that SpaceX will be added to the WisdomTree Space Economy UCITS ETF from 29 June 2026, strengthening the strategy’s exposure to the ongoing commercialisation of space. SpaceX will enter the ETF with an initial 5.5% weighting with subsequent increases anticipated over the coming months as market liquidity develops following the IPO.

Pierre Debru, Wisdomtree

Pierre Debru, head of research, Europe at WisdomTree, said in a statement: “SpaceX’s inclusion shortly after its market debut reflects the flexibility of WisdomTree’s proprietary indexing approach, allowing the strategy to respond to significant changes in the investable universe while remaining transparent, rules-based and aligned with the fund’s objective.”

Cavanaugh argued that an advantage for Defiance is that the firm is known for providing access to next-generation investing themes and targeted exposure to transformative parts of the new economy, and for catering to self-directed retail investors by democratising access to leverage for short-term trading strategies.

“We are differentiated from some of the larger ETF issuers coming to market with SpaceX because this is what we specialize in and we can be more nimble,” he added. “We cater to self-directed investors,  interact with them, and provide education and tools which differentiates our offer in this crowded space.”

Brendan Cavanaugh, Defiance ETFs

He sees a “lot of opportunity” to launch single stock ETFs on the other large technology IPOs in the pipeline such as artificial intelligence firms OpenAI and Anthropic. There will be investor demand companies have been staying private for longer periods so they are familiar to investors, who also already use their products.

The SpaceX ETF provides a blueprint for the launching ETFs for potential new IPOs, said Cavanaugh. Defiance worked with its market makers and trading counterparties to make sure there would not be any capacity issues getting SpaceX exposure and to anticipate any potential issues.

“It is not luck,” he said. “It becomes a dance that you are continuously orchestrating to make sure that all the pieces fall into place.”

ETF flows

Balchunas highlighted that inflows into the U.S. ETF market had exceeded $1 trillion by 17 June this year, so he expects last year’s record of $1.5 trillion in inflows to be beaten.

FLOWMAGEDDON: ETF flows have toched $1 trillion YTD, it's still June. To be sure, a touch of this is S&P 500 rebal but it is looking pretty good that last year's $1.5T record will be broken. Amazing $DRAM is in top 10 overall. Even tho SpaceX has stolen all the attn DRAM is still… pic.twitter.com/6jQaHedL0w

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) June 17, 2026

Assets invested in the U.S. ETF Industry reached a record $15.7 trillion at the end of May this year, according to ETFGI, the research and consultancy firm. Net inflows until the end of May were a record $837bn, exceeding $443.3bn last year. Active ETFs continued to attract strong demand, with year-to-date inflows of $329bn, much higher than the $177bn recorded in the first five months of 2025.

Single stock ETFs are already a big theme in the U.S. ETF market according to Marino, and Themes ETFs has launched more than 80 funds in this very competitive segment. In addition, there is “massive interest” in leverage as ETFs are more efficient and cheaper for retail traders than using options, which require margin payments.

Cavanaugh expects continued growth in the ETF market for both new single name products and for existing ETFs that add new IPO exposures. He added: “The sheer buzz of a new hot IPO entering a thematic product creates a lot of opportunity.”

Terry Duffy, chairman and chief executive of CME Group, spoke to CNBC’s Fast Money about suing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over the approval of perpetual futures:

#NEW @CMEGroup to sue CFTC over the approval of perpetual futures as soon as tomorrow.

Outgoing CEO Terry Duffy speaks to Fast Money exclusively on the lawsuit and his decision to retire. https://t.co/g6Kjz4c5bC

— CNBC's Fast Money (@CNBCFastMoney) June 17, 2026

On 29 May 2026 the CFTC said in a statement that it had approved the listing of the BTCPERP contract, a perpetual contract that references the spot price of bitcoin, as futures listed on designated contract market KalshiEX.

Duffy said at the Piper Sandler Global Exchange and Trading Conference on 4 June 2026 that the 40.3 ruling requires a full review, allowing the industry to comment on novel or complex products.

“They did the review in less than 24 hours, which is a 40.2 self-certification for a novel and complex product which troubled me,” Duffy added. “I’ve had a lot of conversations with the agency so I’m really disappointed.”

The Commodity Exchange Act defines futures as a contract with a delivery or an expiration date, according to Duffy. A perpetual contract never ends, and tracks the spot rate of the underlying asset through a funding rate, which Duffy argued is a swap rather than a future and not suitable for institutional hedging.

He is also concerned that perpetual contracts in the European Union trade between 20 to 250 times leverage with an auto-liquidation model, and said this is not sustainable.

“I’ve spent 30 years of my career building, nurturing, and bringing in retail participants into the market with tools and education so it is sustainable,” added Duffy. “I really believe the 2007 housing market has been supplanted by the speculation market, including prediction markets, and this could be a disaster waiting to happen.”

Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly, a venture capital firm specializing in the cryptocurrency and blockchain, said: 

CME now suing one of their primary regulators, the CFTC, for having approved perps on crypto. CME argues that these products should not have been approved, as they are "useless for institutional investors" and cause retail investors to assume "excessive levels of risk."

CFTC… https://t.co/PApNpuUQE4

— Haseeb ＞|＜ (@hosseeb) June 18, 2026

Qureshi said: “CFTC claps back: “Rather than compete in the marketplace, the CME has decided to undertake lawfare against the agency and the Trump Administration’s pro-innovation agenda,” a CFTC spokesperson said in a statement. “Incumbents fear the future and having to compete on a level playing field. We look forward to addressing their claims and dismissing this frivolous lawsuit.”

This is literally the inverse of the Coinbase SEC lawsuit. Coinbase sued the SEC for the right to exist, while CME is suing their regulator because they don’t want their competition to exist.”

Christopher Perkins, chief executive of 250 Digital Asset Management, said:

Disruption is hard if you are an incumbent. pic.twitter.com/8STvYMLk2P

— Christopher Perkins NYC (@perkinscr97) June 18, 2026

If @CMEGroup is successful in the courts and perps are deemed “swaps” versus futures in the U.S., then the biggest impact will be on the margin period of risk (MPOR). By law, swaps require 5 days of risk whereas futures generally require 1 day of risk.

This rule never ever made…

— Christopher Perkins NYC (@perkinscr97) June 18, 2026

Perkins said: “This rule never ever made sense to me, and makes less sense now. Collateral should be a function of product liquidity (eg how quickly can you liquidate a defaulter’s positions) and how accurate (or stale) the collateralization is. In trad markets, collateralization can be quite stale as the market sleeps on weekends and holidays. Perps typically don’t have this problem—especially when supported by tokenized collateral. So a swap designation would likely keep perps offshore because >2x margin would be needed for basic compliance.”

Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, general counsel of Starkware, the developer of a cryptographic zero-knowledge proof system that seeks to improve scalablity in blockchains, said:

Tbc, I don't think they're going to be successful and I hope they are not – the CFTC's position on perps is sound.

— Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos (@kkirkbos) June 18, 2026

Kirkpatrick Bos added:

We all know now that swaps were defined by Dodd-Frank, but there is no definition of future. The swap definition has a degree of ambiguity that could cut both ways. /2

— Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos (@kkirkbos) June 18, 2026

CME rests HEAVILY on "future delivery" as a req for future. But there's been no clear precedent requiring that this phrase = fixed expiry (e.g. no post-Dodd-Frank cases, no SCOTUS requirement). Is this another CFTC fight that will need to be determined by SCOTUS? I hope not. /4

— Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos (@kkirkbos) June 18, 2026

The CFTC took the position that perps were swaps in the Binance enforcement action. But this position is not binding precedent. An agency can change its mind as long as the theory is sound. 6/

— Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos (@kkirkbos) June 18, 2026

The complaint says the agency's actions inflict "textbook competitive injury" on CME – you need harm in a lawsuit like this. But wait… even if the CFTC hadn't done this, CME would have faced competition for offshore perps. Nothing about this is textbook./8

— Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos (@kkirkbos) June 18, 2026

@_Ryne_Miller @FormerCFTCGC would love your thoughts here. And @tphillips just to disagree with me/play devil's advocate.

— Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos (@kkirkbos) June 18, 2026

Lynne Fitzpatrick, president and chief financial officer at derivatives marketplace CME Group, has been named as successor to  derivatives marketplace to chief Executive Terry Duffy in March 2027.

CME said in a statement on 17 June 2026 that Duffy will transition to executive chairman next year. He said in a statement: “With more than 20 years of strategic and financial expertise and strong leadership abilities, Lynne is the right person at the right time.”

End of an era – Terry Duffy of @CMEGroup is stepping down! Informally known as the "sixth commissioner", he (& CME more broadly) have historically had enormous influence on the CFTC. Interesting development at a critical time.

— Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos (@kkirkbos) June 17, 2026

Duffy (during the exchange consolidation wave – every seat / vote mattered to close deals) was a savvy and shrewd negotiator and a very good businessman https://t.co/znXf28ZYce

— Mojo (@MrMojoRisinX) June 17, 2026

I am sad to see my old friend Terry Duffy is stepping down as CEO of CME. I helped Terry get elected in O2, he has guided the exchange through huge change and historic growth. I wish Terry and CME the best in this transition and in the future. https://t.co/vMYbcjERYY

— PaxTrader777 (@paxtrader777) June 17, 2026

CME Group's CEO Terry Duffy will step down in March 2027, marking a significant leadership transition that could influence the future regulatory landscape and institutional engagement in crypto markets.

— FridayMaxi (@MaxiOrdinals) June 17, 2026

Fitzpatrick said the exchange group has been aiming to extend its product set and client base in an interview in November last year with CFO Dive. She said in the interview. “So we’ve been focusing a lot on partnerships that we think are going to set us up for that long term growth trajectory.”

In August last year CME and FanDuel said they were partnering to develop products and expand access to financial markets for millions of customers of the online gaming company in the United States. Last December they launched a prediction markets platform in five U.S states as the first phase of expansion to other states this year.

The platform will offer event contracts in all 50 states on benchmarks such as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100, prices of oil and gas, gold, cryptocurrencies, and key economic indicators such as GDP and CPI. In addition to financial markets, sports contracts will be available across baseball, basketball, football, and hockey in states where online sports betting is not yet legal, except on tribal lands.

Lynne Fitzpatrick, CME

Fitzpatrick said in statement at the time that CME Group prediction markets will enable a new generation of users to express their views on global benchmarks, economic indicators, sports and more. She added: “This launch is a pivotal step for expanding the reach of our products to FanDuel’s millions of registered users across the U.S.”

In its first quarter results for 2026 CME reported that prediction markets activity has continued to grow with over 215 million event contracts having traded since the early December 2025 launch through all its participants, including over 35 million markets-related event contracts

CME also extended its partnership with Google Cloud in June 2024 with plans to build a new private Google Cloud region, and a co-location facility, in Aurora, Illinois. Fitzpatrick told CFO Dive that all of CME’s data and the majority of its clearing applications have moved into Google’s cloud environment. She added: “So we are very much relying on their expertise in infrastructure and connectivity and our expertise in running the markets themselves.”

In the first quarter results for this year CME said it is advancing the Google partnership to begin livestock trading in the cloud with its new environment in Dallas

Dallas will serve as a training ground for CME’s cloud environment at the Aurora facility, according to the results presentation. CME said: “This environment will provide a critical testing ground for our clients in advance of some agricultural products migrating to the cloud by the end of the year pending completion of testing.

Biography

Fitzpatrick was appointed to her current role in 2024 after previously serving as chief financial officer since 2023. On LinkedIn she said that since joining the company in 2006, she has held positions of increasing responsibility, including chief financial officer, deputy chief financial officer, managing director of corporate development and treasurer.

She said: “Before joining CME Group, I started my career as an investment banker at Credit Suisse and UBS, experiences that gave me a solid foundation in finance that I carry with me to this day.I am a proud alum of Brown University, where I earned my bachelor’s degree in economics. Later, I completed my MBA with honors from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.In July 2025, I was honored to be named a Notable Leader in Finance by Crain’s Chicago Business, following my previous inclusion on their 40 Under 40 list.”

When Fitzpatrick was on the 40 Under 40 list in 2017, Crain’s Chicago Business wrote that when she took family road trips as a child, her father tested her deductive reasoning and math skills as he drove, which was good preparation for a career in finance.

Rumi Morales, who formerly led CME’s venture fund and reported to Fitzpatrick, told Crain’s Chicago Business: “She is just extremely competent, thoughtful and resourceful. She listens and she solves problems. In a corporate bureaucracy, it can be challenging to get things done, but she does, and everyone admires her for it.”

Orderly CEO succession at a literal monopoly on rate and equity vol? Bears will call it "uncertainty." CME calls it Tuesday. Fitzpatrick built the balance sheet that funds the moat: this is an upgrade dressed as a transition. $CME pic.twitter.com/JcuM7T4JAB

— 13F Pro (@13F_Pro) June 17, 2026

Financials

Terrence Duffy, CME Group

CME reported record revenue of $1.9bn for the first quarter of 2026, up 14% year-on-year.  Average daily volume for the first quarter increased 22% to a record 36.2 million contracts, including records in all six asset classes.

“Efficiencies provided to our client base also hit a new high in Q1 with over $85bn in average daily margin savings, and we’re very pleased to further extend our FICC cross-margining agreement to end-user clients,” added Duffy. “Looking ahead, innovation remains central to our growth strategy.”

Interest in using perpetual futures has grown from zero to 21%, according to a poll at the IDX 2026 conference in London.

The first day of the FIA International Derivatives Expo in London was on 16 June 2026. A poll of the audience attending the digital asset derivatives panel found that exchange-traded funds and products were the preferred instrument for trading digital assets at 38%, followed by futures at 28%. Perpetual futures were in third place at 21%, but had been zero two years ago in the same poll, according to the moderator.

Perpetual futures track the price of an underlying asset like without an expiry or settlement date. In order to track the price of the price of the underlying asset, a  funding payment is exchanged between long and short position holders. If the perpetual price is above spot, longs pay shorts (and vice versa).

John Palmer, Kraken

John Palmer, global head of derivatives at Kraken, said on the panel that just under $70 trillion crypto perpetuals traded globally last year, but only a small percentage of that was in the U.S. due to the lack of regulatory approval.

On 29 May 2026 the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said in a statement that it had approved KalshiEX, a designated contract market, to list a perpetual contract that references the spot price of bitcoin, as a futures contract. On the same day the CFTC issued a policy statement stating that, given the unique characteristics of perpetual contracts, the regulator will carry out a case-by-case review for the listing of perpetual contracts on other asset classes.

Subsequently, the regulator said in a statement on on 12 June 2026 that it had issued no-action relief to designated contract markets who want to convert their existing perpetual-style digital commodity futures contracts into true digital commodity perpetual futures.

On 15 June 2026 Kraken said it has launched CFTC-regulated perpetual futures in the U.S., giving eligible clients domestic access on Kraken Pro alongside spot, margin, and CME-listed futures.

“Kraken is happy to be along that ride,” said Palmer. “We now see a global landscape for perpetuals so  trading perpetuals in the U.S. is a similar experience for someone sitting in London, India, or Hong Kong.”

Kraken’s perpetuals are listed on Bitnomial, a CFTC-regulated exchange acquired by its parent company, Payward, in May this year. The contracts trade with an eight-hour funding rate, matching the conventional structure for crypto perpetuals: at 7 pm, 3 am, and 11 am CT. Clients can trade spot crypto, perpetuals and CME futures In the same interface.

“Customers want access to additional products and they want to trade it the same way as they are trading the existing products,” added Palmer. “They want to use the same app, the same wallet and the same counterparty.”

At launch, eligible clients can trade a suite of major digital assets. Kraken intends to expand the contract set and product functionality, including broader collateral options, over time.

Darius Tabatabai, Kraken

Darius Tabatabai, head of Kraken Pro, said in a statement that  U.S traders have been waiting for a regulated, domestic way to trade the product that defines global crypto derivatives markets.

Tabatabai added: “Bitnomial’s regulated infrastructure is what made this launch possible in short order. Their work on the regulatory and market structure side, combined with Kraken’s distribution and technology, is what brings this to U.S. traders at scale.”

Palmer added that Kraken and Payward have assembled all the regulated entities and licenses that the group requires globally. In addition to Bitnomial, Kraken completed the $1.5bn acquisition of U.S. retail futures trading platform, NinjaTrader, in May 2025 and then began to offer CME futures in October.

Bitnomial operates a futures commission merchant (FCM), a derivatives exchange (DCM), and a clearinghouse in the U.S. (DCO.) As a result, Palmer argued that Kraken has the full stack alongside NinjaTrader.

Sabrina Wilson, GFO-X

“We can now onboard, list, trade and clear products that we design for our customers,” added Palmer. “That is the path we have chosen in the U.S. which is similar to other vertically integrated entities around the globe.”

Sabrina Wilson, chief operating officer at GFO-X, the first regulated and centrally cleared trading venue dedicated specifically to digital asset derivatives in the U.K., highlighted that U.S has a “huge regulatory tailwind” because there is a retail ban on derivatives on digital assets in the U.K.

“We have had a retail ban since 2019 and that also extends to prediction markets,” she added. “Binary options are also banned in the UK for retail participation, so we have a very different distribution model.”

Rebecca Ashton joined DTCC, the post-trade infrastructure, as global head of DTCC Consulting in October 2024 from consultancy Accenture, where she had managed the relationship with two large U.S. investment banks for Europe. DTCC helped the U.S. move to a shorter settlement cycle of one day after a trade, T+1,  in 2024 and the same move is due to happen in 2027 in Europe. The industry is also having to navigate the shift to operating across 24 hours and the growing use of digital assets.

How is DTCC Consulting supporting clients through change?

DTCC Consulting started around five years ago because many clients asked us for support, both about interfacing with our products and to address broader industry changes. DTCC has many in-house experts, so it made sense for us to offer a consulting solution to help clients navigate successfully through regulatory and industry change.

Rebecca Ashton, DTCC

Larger market participants tend to have significant resources to invest in change and interpret regulations, whereas smaller institutions in the industry do not have that, therefore our objective is to democratise advisory services and to provide high quality advice to both this part of the market, as well as large financial institutions. To enable that, we have created a retainer model so clients can access half a day of expertise at a time for specific challenges which are created by industry or regulatory change, therefore making advisory services more accessible.

Can clients get help on issues that are not related to DTCC products?

Absolutely. For example, we provide advice on target operating models, support data lineage programmes, process optimisation, strategy and remediation services. We’re currently helping a fellow central securities depository (CSD) with their change strategy and are well placed to do that as the largest CSD in the world. We would categorise ourselves as post-trade and market infrastructure specialists.

Is the industry well prepared for T+1 in Europe?

I think the transition is going to be a little more challenging than the process in the U.S., which has just one CSD – DTCC. There is a significantly different ecosystem in Europe due to the number of CSDs, the legal perspective, the number of countries, time zones and languages, making coordination inherently more difficult.

We hosted a number of webinars for clients and the industry at large to prepare for Europe T+1 because we are well placed to do that after playing a leading role in the successful implementation of T+1 in the U.S. There are a number of lessons that we can apply to the EU and the UK, and to Asia Pacific as those markets start to think about their settlement times.

In a survey that we ran in a recent webinar, 39% of respondents said they are planning or actively implementing and testing for T+1; almost half (49%) are still assessing requirements.

One of the biggest challenges is that even if the larger institutions are well on their way in their  programs, the metrics are heavily skewed by their counterparts that may not have available resources to prepare so far in advance. We have a good, unique selling point from a consultancy perspective because we can leverage Central Trade Matching (CTM) data to identify problem areas and use our data insights and expertise to address inefficiencies.

We can only assess the post-trade efficiency of clients that use CTM, but as so many clients do use it, we have early visibility over same-day matching rates and allocations, which means we can get some good metrics around how well the industry is doing in terms of preparing for T+1 implementation.

We can look at the metrics in CTM, marry it with the data from an institutions’ other providers and lift the hood. We’ve had huge success in improving client’s performance, and one of the ways we’ve helped has been to undertake counterparty outreach for clients on the efficiency of their counterparties. Given we are a respected market infrastructure, we can neutralise any possible friction there may be in telling their clients how to improve.

Are you helping clients use more AI?

We don’t develop bots, but we do a significant amount of output validation. A number of clients are asking how we’re seeing others use AI to get a head start on regulatory and industry change. We are now seeing clients use AI across much of their middle and back-office processing.

Is DTCC transitioning to a 24×5 operating schedule for U.S. equities clearing a topic that frequently comes up when you talk to clients?

This is optional for clients. If a bank wants to implement this to get maximum competitive advantage, it requires a heavy investment in automation, and always-on risk monitoring and control. There is a big shift to make sure risk teams are adequately staffed across all time zones and the necessary expertise requires significant investment. Banks will also incur the expense of pre-funding overnight, which impacts their balance sheet.

The market is demanding that institutions move much faster than they’ve ever had to before, and there is an associated cost. The industry is moving towards a global standard of T+1 settlement timelines, and then maybe in time, T0. In addition, while we are moving to 24×5 trading now, 24×7 trading may not be far behind – which will only be possible with STP (straight though processing)

Do clients ask how they are doing compared to their peers?

Yes, peer group comparisons are a common request. The good news is that we are really well placed to provide anonymised insights in this area. For example, with T+1 we can use CTM data to create an anonymised review amongst a peer group of 10. From a buy-side perspective, we have started producing broker scorecards for post-trade efficiency.

Are clients asking for advice on digital assets?

Following the SEC’s No-Action Letter related to DTCC’s tokenization services, we are starting to engage with a significant number of clients in this area.

The DTC tokenization service will execute a series of limited, initial production trades in July; more than 20 firms spanning both TradFi and DeFi will participate. We expect the tokenization service to go live in October, and there has been a tremendous amount of interest across the industry.

What is your growth strategy?

We’re a relatively new business. Therefore, we are currently focused on ensuring that clients know we are here to support them with their innovation, AI and tokenization needs as well as preparing them for regulatory and wider industry change. Our aim is to be the go-to post-trade consultancy. Our client feedback scores are 4.9 out of 5, which indicates the value our experts have delivered to clients.

Clients trust us because we are member-owned, which means that profit is not the immediate objective. We are product agnostic, including DTCC’s products. For example, when we have been  asked to run vendor assessments for clients in the regulatory reporting space, we tailor our advice to the needs of the client and remain wholly neutral in this process.

We have a fundamentally different reason for existing than other consultancies in that we are here to make markets run safely and efficiently. We lean into our DNA and use our expertise which is built on 50+ years of market infrastructure knowledge, to bring even more value to our clients

What advice would you give to women who want to work in finance?

Financial services is evolving rapidly through technology, data and changing client expectations – creating more opportunities than ever before. It’s a truly exciting time to be part of this industry and help architect the Financial Services of tomorrow.

My advice to women would be to stay curious, be ambitious and never underestimate the value of your unique perspective. Every experience shapes you in some way, lean-in to new opportunities and challenges that present themselves and use set-backs and hard times to build your resiliency – those moments will be the ones that help you thrive in the future.

How do you relax outside work?

I play netball once a week and try to do as much exercise as I can squeeze in – which is never as much as I’d like! Beside that, I have recently moved to a new house with a large garden, so learning all about plants and how not to kill them is a new hobby!

On June 11 2026 the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission proposed rescinding Rule 611 of Regulation NMS, also known as the trade-through rule, which ensures that investors receive the best possible price regardless of which exchange executes their trade. The rule prevents trading venues from executing an order at a price that was worse than the best publicly displayed price on any other competing exchange.

Paul Atkins, chairman of the SEC said in a statement that although the  central aim of Rule 611 was to incentivize displayed liquidity, trading activity has increasingly occurred off-exchange over the last two decades. Atkins said: “I am concerned that what the Rule rather incentivized was a proliferation of new trading venues, which in turn fragmented liquidity and created an increasingly complex, costly, and opaque marketplace for order execution.”

Joe Saluzzi, partner and co-founder of broker Themis Trading, said on X that the SEC has “sold out the retail investor so they could move forward with their tokenized Field of Dreams.”

This is not correct. If these disastrous rules are repealed, FINRA 5310 will become load bearing and the duty to ensure users get best execution will fall to the brokers. It is extremely easy to audit this because exeuction is very easy to measure.

This setup is how securities… https://t.co/PXnyEMxXjj

— Max Resnick (@MaxResnick) June 12, 2026

Saluzzi suggested that the SEC the could have proposed modifications including introducing market share thresholds for protected quotes, adjusting SIP revenue formula to stop rewarding exchanges for fleeting quotes and adding depth of book protection. (The SIP, or consolidated tape, publishes the prevailing National Best Bid Offer (NBBO) for U.S equities. The NBBO is a composite of the highest bid and lowest offer across all U.S. equity exchanges in real time.)

Rather than eliminating Rule 611, modifications could have been suggested. I discussed this with @RepStephenLynch at last month's House Financial Services Committee meetinghttps://t.co/AOlyIP1k4Z

— Joe Saluzzi (@JoeSaluzzi) June 11, 2026

@TradingDutchman, who describes himself as an “HFT market maker turned HF market taker”, said:

Part of this “getting ready for tokenised securities “ is abolishing the trade through rule. Crypto exchanges tech is extremely crappy, and liquidity in these TS is even more crap. Part of the CLARITY act is a rule that “if you want to trade TS, you need to be regulated as an… https://t.co/VBSbxUtW06 pic.twitter.com/lj0LapgfeL

— The trading Dutchman (@TradingDutchman) June 6, 2026

He said: “Part of the CLARITY act is a rule that “if you want to trade TS, you need to be regulated as an exchange and follow all the existing securities regulations, like reg NMS, reg T, reg SHO, etc

There is no way Coinbase , Binance, etc will be able to do that and compete with Nasdaq / Arca, BATS et all, and they would have to route all that flow away to the incumbents. To prevent that and keep the flow to themselves, it looks like they convinced the regulators to give up the price protection rules for investors.

I am worried there will be a lot of abuse of this exemption. (PFOF anybody?) Let’s wait and find out more detail of what exactly is the plan here.”

Alex Thorn, head of  research at digital asset fund manager, agreed the trade-through rule is “one of the biggest structural barriers to tokenized US equities trading in DeFi [decentralized finance] today” as AMMs are not designed to comply with the rule. An (automated market makers (AMM) uses mathematical formulas and smart contracts to set prices and execute trades automatically rather than matching buyers and sellers in a traditional order book.

the Commission voted to propose rescinding Rule 611 (the order protection rule) and Rule 610(e) (locked/crossed market restrictions), plus related definitions. 60-day comment period. proposal, not final.. but the direction is unmistakable

— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) June 11, 2026

this is one of the biggest structural barriers to tokenized US equities trading in DeFi today. an AMM cannot comply with 611 by construction. it executes against a bonding curve at whatever the pool price is, with slippage, at block-time granularity

— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) June 11, 2026

610(e) is the same story. AMM prices drift continuously with flow and would routinely lock or cross the displayed NBBO, which venues are currently required to prevent

— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) June 11, 2026

tokenized NMS stocks still face a host of other questions re: exchange/ATS registration questions, clearance and settlement, and many other rules not designed for defi or peer-to-peer trading. we hope many of these will be addressed in the SEC’s forthcoming “innovation exemption”

— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) June 11, 2026

two decades of equity market structure built around a single rule, and the SEC wants to lift it, which is an important step in clearing the way for the next step of innovation in trading equity securities

— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) June 11, 2026

Christopher Perkins, CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management, said:

Been waiting for this…
Reg NMS/the NBBO has been one of the biggest challenges and obstacles to unlocking the benefits of tokenized equities.
If rescinded, it’s a whole new ballgame. Major unlock for DeFi. Incumbents won’t be happy. https://t.co/zZos7Ka3QY

— Christopher Perkins NYC (@perkinscr97) June 12, 2026

Tyler Gellasch, president and chief executive of Healthy Markets Association, said:

Rule 611 just prevents exchanges from executing at bad prices. So this expressly allows brokers, market makers, and exchanges to rip off investors. It is the first major example of repealing tradfi rules to enable currently-allowed crypto market abuses in tradfi. https://t.co/dvZBqWVe6p

— Tyler Gellasch (@TylerGellasch) June 12, 2026

Olivia Vande Woude, business development, tokenization at Ava Labs, argued that when an investor buys stock through a U.S. broker, they transact at NBBO or better, because of Reg NMS. She said: “That obligation is why retail investors can trust that the price on their screen is the real one. A token that claims to represent that same share should clear the same bar; anything less is a different instrument sporting the same ticker.”

the tokenized equity debate is missing a word: NBBO. If the token is the share, it should trade at the share's price, @ NBBO or better, accountable to a standard, not a venue's discretion. I wrote up a short piece on why: https://t.co/4QFS3jbImn

— Olivia Vande Woude (@cryptoreine) June 1, 2026

So the bar for the category should be simple & public: a tokenized equity should trade at NBBO or better. Ask any issuer whether theirs does, and what percentage of the time it lands inside the spread.”

Galaxy Digital, the digital assets fund manager, said prediction markets are the future of event-driven markets for institutions as it launched its first over-the-counter (OTC) offering in the space.

The asset manager’s global markets trading desk hosted a webinar on 10 June to discuss the growth in prediction markets and the increasing interest from institutions. Zane Glauber, global head of distribution at Galaxy, said on the webinar that prediction markets are the future of event-driven markets for institutions.

Zane Glauber, Galaxy

There was more than $44bn of trading across prediction markets in 2025, according to Galaxy research, predominantly on Polymarket and Kalshi. Glauber said: “Prediction markets have gone from niche to mainstream, and the velocity of growth  has been quite remarkable.”

As a result the firm launched its first institutional OTC prediction markets offering from its global trading desk with the aim of bringing liquidity, risk management, and institutional scale to event-driven markets. The OTC transactions are between Galaxy and the counterparty, where they each take credit risk, and involve trading economic substitutes for shares on contracts markets that are not fungible with those that could potentially trade on Polymarket or Kalshi.

Galaxy’s offering covers instruments referencing non-sports event contracts traded on Kalshi and Polymarket, including economic, political, geopolitical, and other event-driven markets, with plans to expand to additional platforms.

“We think this is a powerful tool to pair with equities, commodities and other hedges for our counterparties,” Glauber added.

Jason Urban, global co-head of digital assets at Galaxy, said in a statement that event-driven markets are becoming core to how sophisticated investors express macro views. Urban said. “We’re giving clients a principal counterparty that can warehouse risk, build hedged strategies across asset classes, and execute at sizes and scale that actually matter to their overall portfolios.”

One example of this strategy is the new desk’s execution of a $10m trade with crypto-native hedge fund Arca, on whether the CLARITY Act for digital asset market structure will be passed by the U.S. administration.

Mike Harvey, head of franchise trading at Galaxy, said on the webinar that the most important reason for institutions to care about prediction markets is for event-driven exposure and hedging. He added: “An age-old problem in macro trading is the construction of the perfect hedge for your view.”

Gil Wassermann, Galaxy

Gil Wassermann, head of prediction markets at Galaxy, commented on the webinar that prediction contracts allow investors to be “hyper-specific” about the exposure they are trying to  hedge. He said: “The specificity makes this very different from everything else in financial markets.”

Urban added that prediction contracts allow hedging with “surgical” precision. Galaxy gave a purely hypothetical example of a movie studio launching a major film and wanting to have a floor on their investment by using a prediction market contract to hedge against the film making a certain amount of money on its opening weekend. Wassermann described this type of transaction as a similar risk transfer that is carried out today by a traditional bank’s  exotic derivatives desk.

“A client wants to hedge a very specific exposure that  is warehoused by the dealer and hedged in vanilla proxies,” Wassermann added. “Clients can trade the outcome and leave all  headache of managing risk to us.”

Clients can also hedge against events around macroeconomic outcomes, such as whether a central bank will raise interest rates or whether an asset reaches a certain price. Glauber added that event contracts are surgical tools for corporates to hedge risks to their business, which may not just be FX or interest rates.

Clients have been having conversations with Galaxy about using prediction markets related to macroeconomic and geopolitical  events, according to Wassermann. He said: “It has been really interesting to think about how we want to hedge that creatively from our side.”

Hedging is important for Galaxy as it is warehousing binary contracts. Once the outcome is determined, the contract held by the winning party pays out, while the other side loses everything.

Mike Harvey, Galaxy

Harvey continued that futures are available as alternatives to some event contracts, such as those based on the direction of interest rates. However, he argued that some clients may prefer to use prediction contracts as they receive a defined payout, or they not have access to futures, or they may want a more bespoke hedge.

Wassermann said the new desk had a “reasonably sized” book. He added: “One of things that has been cool is the partnership as a lot of times the conversation starts out with a discussion of the client’s worries. If it is better to just trade this in the vanilla space, we will let them know.”

ETFs

Harvey added that some asset managers have been in discussions about launching prediction market ETFs, but these would need permission from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

In February this year Roundhill filed with the SEC to register six ETFs investing in event contracts, including which political party wins the presidency and control of either house of Congress. This was followed by similar applications from other issuers, including  GraniteShares and Bitwise.

Paul Atkins, SEC

Paul Atkins, chairman of the SEC, said in a statement on 20 May 2026: “Novel products raise novel questions, and I appreciate the willingness fund sponsors have shown in delaying the effectiveness of a number of novel ETFs, including event contract ETFs, while we consider the implications. To ensure we do this in a transparent and thoughtful manner, I have instructed the staff to seek input from the public on how the Commission should respond to recent market changes.”

Jeffrey Ptak, managing director for Morningstar Research Services, said in a blog that the SEC should reject contract market ETFs. He argued that ETFs have been a relatively cheap, reliable gateway to global capital markets, creating trillions in wealth and advancing important goals for investors such as funding college or retirement.

“These proposed products seem like the antithesis of that,” said Ptak. “They’re zero-sum and serve no economically productive purpose, such as facilitating capital formation and spurring innovation. They’re likely to be costly and push investors’ buttons to their detriment.”

Oracle risk

Wassermann highlighted that there are some risks that are very specific to prediction markets, including oracle risk as some of the wording of prediction contracts can be unclear in certain edge cases. He said: “The market is great at  pushing to those edge cases and really like testing out this oracle mechanism.”

Jeff Dorman, co-founder and chief investment officer at Arca, said in a blog that the firm is a big believer in prediction markets, as shown by its trade with Galaxy, but that the oracle problem is a huge risk. Dorman wrote in a blog that “Polymarket ruined prediction markets.”

Dorman highlighted a contract on Polymarket that was: “MicroStrategy sells any Bitcoin by May 31, 2026,” for which there was $400m in bets.

In a regulatory filing on 1 June Microstrategy, the bitcoin treasury company, said that the firm did sell bitcoin between 26 May  and 31 May, but the contract did not pay out “YES.”

Jeff Dorman, Arca

Dorman said “Polymarket posted “additional context” (at 1 p.m. ET Monday 1 June): “no MSTR filing, on-chain data, or credible reporting had confirmed a sale within the market’s timeframe, and confirmation achieved outside that window doesn’t qualify.”

He argued that this does not make sense, as the contract could traded after 31 May and cited a research note from Will Owens at Galaxy Digital who agreed that Strategy sold Bitcoin before that date.

“Everyone who bought YES predicted the future correctly, and the market told them they were wrong,” said Owens. “A prediction market is supposed to price what will happen; when resolution diverges from what actually happened, the product is merely pricing how the platform will read its own rules after the fact. That’s worthless.”

Dorman continued that this will be an interesting case study in “the persistence of negative public opinion that is almost unanimously against Polymarket, the outcome, the oracle, and the UMA protocol’s voting mechanism.”