18 March 2026
Determination is key to maximizing the impact of innovation in financial markets.
We are looking back at a very interesting and inspiring #Boca2026 conference of @FIA.inc. It was great to meet, engage and discuss the current themes in cleared markets with our partners and peers and we made strong new connections.
Three topics stood out to us during the conference:
1. The evolving approach of U.S. regulators in reshaping the regulatory framework, as introduced by Michael Selig, Chairman, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and underlined by Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins,
2. The sustained attention to prediction trading
3. The widespread commitment to tokenization as the future of market structure.
Let’s dive a bit deeper into these three topics.
1. While the EU has the Draghi and Letta report that emphasizes competitiveness and better regulation, CFTC Chairman Selig’s message at Boca focused on the implementation of principle based regulation that provides clarity on how innovation can occur in the market while continuing to protect the end-investor. The CFTC indicated it will revisit over-regulation that caps business and is actively seeking interaction with market participants. Proprietary trading firms (PTFs) should be able to bring new liquidity into markets, and restrictions thereto are a point of attention. This is a positive approach that supports PTFs in taking their role in financial markets. Especially in combination with the upcoming change in legislation to facilitate digital asset trading, we see a strong push for growth in U.S. financial markets. SEC Chairman Atkins indicated the regulators would work together in applying a minimum effective dose of regulation while establishing clear market infrastructure. These elements are both essential to ensuring technological transformation in the financial markets remains anchored in the U.S. rather than offshore. Already during the conference, this was supported by a release on further cooperation and the jurisdictional conclusion between the regulators. The markets see concrete work already underway, including clearer digital asset classifications (including true crypto perpetuals), and setting a gold standard for regulating prediction markets.
2. Prediction trading is the ‘talk of town’ in the U.S. It’s the analytics layer that can feed both algorithmic trading and HFT, with horizons from milliseconds to days, providing diverse opportunities for business. Although widely used by participants in U.S. markets, there is no bespoke regime as the activity fits within existing SEC/CFTC rules on best execution, market manipulation/anti fraud and algorithmic risk controls. The SEC has proposed a ‘Predictive Data Analytics’ conflicts rule for brokers/advisers, which is not yet adopted. The EU is less likely to accept the concept of prediction trading, as a decade ago there was a supervisory approach that questioned the tolerability of comparable activity in binary options trading. Other jurisdictions seem to hover somewhere in between. This all impacts the scalability of prediction models and potential increase of institutional participation and adoption. It’s to await if this trend continues to be embraced globally.
3. As tokenization moves from pilots to production, multiple panels at the conference discussed how institutions can adopt new technologies and assets can be brought on chain. The discussions focused on interesting use cases, governance standards, collaboration models and scaling the tokenized markets. Additionally, in every meeting we had, we elaborated on the opportunities around tokenization and the activities of Flow Traders in this segment. Views differ on whether tokenization is primarily an efficiency upgrade to existing market structure or a true innovation that unlocks illiquid assets for cleared markets. In the U.S., we see a rapid growth of on chain money market funds and tokenized equity and fund shares on public/permissioned chains. The different State legislative approaches are a challenge although increased clarity occurs. In the EU there are custodian (CSDs) and trading venue pilots under the DLT Pilot regime, several issuances of tokenized bonds and the cash options vary (commercial bank money tokens and e money tokens under MiCA). The next challenge is to create interoperability with legacy CSD and CCP systems and come to settlement finality in DLT contexts. To the latter, the transformation of the regulatory DLT pilot regime into a full DLT regime under the Market Integration Package is essential, just like the supervisory convergence led by ESMA to prevent divergent NCA interpretations.
Next to all the commercial and regulatory discussions, the in-depth sessions on stage and the chats in the corridors, the interview with Serena Williams also brought hundreds of participants to the conference room. She gave an insight into her tennis and business career. Main lesson she shared was on “determination”. You must show up and keep working on getting better, looking for the next best thing. That felt like a succinct recap of three days of discussions.