Every exchange is an exchange of everything
Photo by Block Unicorn
MARKETS ARE CONSTANTLY EVOLVING, AND THIS IS THEIR INHERENT PATTERN. THEY EVENTUALLY GO BEYOND THE ORIGINAL DESIGN. THE CHICAGO COMMODITY EXCHANGE (CME), WHICH WAS FIRST ESTABLISHED IN 1898 AS AN EXCHANGE DOMINATED BY BUTTER AND EGG TRADING, LATER DEVELOPED INTO THE LARGEST DERIVATIVE MARKET IN THE WORLD. THE AMAZON WAS ALSO INITIALLY SELLING FLAT-CLOTHES BOOKS THROUGH THE CONSTRUCTION OF WAREHOUSES AND PAYMENT SYSTEMS. TODAY, THE SAME SYSTEM NO LONGER CARES WHAT THEY SELL. BOOKS MAY NOW BE ONLY A NEGLIGIBLE PART OF AMAZON REVENUES。
This model still applies. You build infrastructure for something, and then you find it can be used for a lot of other things, and then you constantly expand your operations to accommodate everything infrastructure can support。
An encrypted currency exchange is going through this moment。
THEIR INFRASTRUCTURE FOR CURRENCY TRANSACTIONS APPLIES EQUALLY TO TRANSACTIONS INVOLVING CRUDE OIL, SILVER, STOCK INDICES, PRE-IPO SHARES OR INCIDENT CONTRACTS. OVER THE PAST SEVEN MONTHS, NON-ENCRYPTED CURRENCY CONTRACTS HAVE ACCOUNTED FOR 99 PER CENT OF ALL TRANSACTIONS, AND THIS MARKET FOR UNLICENSED TRANSACTIONS DID NOT EXIST TWO YEARS AGO。
This market pattern is widespread. Each exchange is competing to become a multi-asset broker, while block-chain technology offers the most economical way to achieve this goal。
Cheapest Path
The renewal of futures contracts or forecast market contracts does not concern whether the assets targeted are bitcoin or crude oil. All you need is a wallet with a stable currency to buy some kind of monetized futures contract, or an investment in Apple's quarterly financial results. The trading platform itself does not focus on the targeted assets. Just as the Internet and logistics networks do not care what commodities are traded on the Amazon market。
But why would traders abandon existing trading places and trade in silver and stocks in an exchange that was only a few years old? The reasons are the same as those for choosing online transactions: convenience and cost savings。
Amazon cut off the middleman link and allowed long-distance sellers to ship directly to buyers. This enables vendors to defeat competitors by providing subsidized prices. At the same time, buyers can easily view large quantities of goods at home (or anywhere else), adding them to shopping carts and paying for them。
While the cost advantages provided by the block chain were initially created for encrypted currency transactions, it applies equally to stock settlement, commodity clearing and cross-border stock transactions。
Real-time markets around the block chain allow global traders to price events at any time. Over the past few months, we have witnessed on many occasions their impact on unencrypted assets。
Since October 2025HyperliquidTHE NON-LICENSED MARKET (HIP-3) HAS PROCESSED APPROXIMATELY $270 BILLION IN TRANSACTIONS AT SEVEN TRADING SITES DEPLOYED BY DEVELOPERS. OF THESE, 99 PER CENT CAME FROM BULK COMMODITIES, EQUITIES, FOREIGN EXCHANGE, EQUITY FINGERS AND PRE-IPO CONTRACTS. ENCRYPTED CURRENCY TRANSACTIONS ARE ALWAYS BELOW 1%. MOREOVER, THE PORTFOLIO CONTINUES TO DIVERSIFY EVERY MONTH。
The last weekend of February this year saw an escalation of the conflict between the United States and Iran, and the global largest commodity exchange, the Chicago Commodity Exchange (CME), closed. However, Hyperliquid’s WTI contract was never closed. In just three weekends, the platform surged from $25 million to over $550 million. According to a recent report by TD Securities, before the Chicago Commodity Exchange reopened on Monday, Hyperliquid had absorbed about 80 per cent of the subsequent fluctuations in WTI crude oil prices。
During the price increase in precious metals earlier this year, the daily volume of silver-for-life contracts was close to $1 billion. Trade platforms based on block chains continue to be traded even when traditional markets are closed。
This phenomenon is not unique to criminals, but is also present in stock exchanges。
United States equities account for more than 60 per cent of the global stock market value. For most investors in the world, the purchase of United States stocks requires foreign exchange exchange through intermediaries, as well as minimum account balances requirements, and account types are restricted。
Everyone wants to partake in the growth story of the largest global economy. This explains why almost all encrypted money exchanges want traders to buy and sell United States shares or derivatives based on United States shares。
On June 1MoneyDeclare the launch of a 7000-cent commission trading service for 300 million registered users for only United States-listed shares, and provide $5 in fragmentation. The vast majority of users are outside the United States and can now invest in United States stocks through their stable currency wallets。
Kraken's xStocks has shown how monetization affects investors' access to open shares. The platform has only publicly monetized over 100 shares, traded $25 billion and owned 80,000 chain holders。
A block chain can also unlock traditional marketsPRE-IPO PRICE DISCOVERY MECHANISMI don't know. SpaceX is preparing for the largest IPO in history, which is expected to raise about $75 billion. On June 1AnthropicSecretly submitted IPO application file. OpenAI may also follow. Prior to the listing of these companies, the price discovery mechanism was not transparent and limited to the participation of qualified investors。
YesPrivate Asset PricingI explained how markets price assets that behaved like listed companies。
Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have brand name, scalable income and hundreds of millions of users. They have everything on the list, except the lack of public shareholders. Their marketing strategies ensure that everyone has their own views on them. In fact, SpaceX has an unprecedented success rate, with almost everyone having their own views on it, and almost no one can really assess its value。
Block chains provide a variety of tools that allow the market to price these private companies。
FOR EXAMPLE, MANY OF THE PLATFORMS THAT WERE ORIGINALLY ENCRYPTED CURRENCY EXCHANGES NOW OFFER IPO-FOR-LIFE CONTRACTS, FORECAST MARKET CONTRACTS AND TOKENIZED IPO ACCESS TO COMPANIES THAT HAVE NOT YET BEEN LISTED。
Many traders offer permanent contracts on the Hyperliquid platform for companies like SpaceX, Cerebra and Anthropic. Over the past six months, the volume of these contracts has increased by about 300 times, from $16 million to $4.7 billion. In May, these long-term contracts for pre-IPO shares were 7.7 per cent of the total HIP-3 transactions, compared to 0.2 per cent in December 2025。
These are not only always open and cheaper, but also provide sufficient liquidity that traders can trust。
During the escalation of the situation in Iran, the WTI crude oil futures contract at Hyperliquid was traded in hundreds of millions of dollars a day, with minimal price differentials. Between January and April 2026, the volume of open futures contracts for WTI crude oil jumped from $1.8 million to $560 million。
Traditional exchanges can also use user deposits to provide cross-guarantee transactions and deep liquidity to users. Through integration with PreStocks, coins enable users to participate in pre-IPO stock transactions; while Payward (Kraken's parent company) allows users to invest in denominated IPOs。
Less than 24 hours ago, Coinbase joined Kraken and Binance to launch a malicious contract against former IPO shares, the first of which were SpaceX。
Build a whole house of finance technology
The two-way integration of traditional finance with encrypted money is creating a full-fledged financial technology platform for many companies. On the one hand, the encrypted money origin platform is expanding traditional asset classes; on the other hand, traditional exchanges are fast adopting block chain infrastructure。
In the area of encrypted currency, Kraken spent over $2.7 billion over the past 12 months on acquisitions, transforming it into a multi-asset broker. In March 2025, the company purchased injaTrader at $1.5 billion, the largest purchase to date of a futures commission registered with the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)。
Subsequently, the company acquired Backed Finance, thereby exercising its own control over xStocks issues, transactions and settlements. By the beginning of 2026, the product category had grown from 60 to 100 tokenized shares. Since then, the company has undertaken five additional acquisitions in the areas of payment, liquidation and automated trading infrastructure。
Subsequently, the company launched Krak, a payment application to support 160 countries/areas with more than 300 assets, to help users consume, send and earn income in encrypted currencies。
Coinbase has a similar product mix。
At a product launch in December 2025, Coinbase launched a commission-free stock exchange covering 50 states in the United States and a forecast market through Kalshi。
In August 2025, Coinbase acquired Deribit at $2.9 billion, thus controlling the world ' s largest encrypted currency option. Today, Coimbas e is positioning USDC and its Layer-2 chain Base as a clearing platform for transactions ranging from proxy payments to stock exchanges。
These platforms have entered the financial sphere through encrypted money and now have distribution networks that have been built by traditional financial giants for decades. It has 300 million registered users, Kraken serves 15 million clients in 190 countries. Such a large group of users is their largest moat to expand multi-asset brokering。
WHEN THE COIN IS ON LINE 7000, IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BUILD DEMAND FROM SCRATCH. THE PURCHASE CHANNELS FOR THESE SHARES AND FOR FORMER IPO SHARES ARE OPEN TO THOSE USERS WHO HAVE BEEN CHARGED STABLE COINS MANY TIMES AND HAVE COMPLETED AUTHENTICATION. FOR AN EXISTING ENCRYPTED MONEY BROKER, THE MARGINAL COST OF INCREASING STOCK TRANSACTIONS IS MUCH LOWER THAN THE COST OF ACQUIRING A NEW CUSTOMER BY A TRADITIONAL BROKER。
Traditional enterprises are also actively adjusting themselves to remain competitive。
On the same day that the United States stock exchange was launched, the Chicago Commodity Exchange Group, the world ' s largest derivative, announced that all its futures and options in encrypted currencies would be traded 24 hours a day。
Managed $11.4 trillion in assetsDTCCIn July of this year, tokenized securities will be piloted and fully operational in October. The pilot covered Russell 1,000 index units, major indicesETFUS Treasury. More than 50 companies, including Belet, Morgan Chase and Circle, are involved in the project。
The New York Stock Exchange, in collaboration with Securitize, has built a 24-hour platform for currency exchange. NASDAQ obtained approval from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in March to trade tokenized shares in its existing trading system。
THIS IS AN INTERESTING PHENOMENON OF INTEGRATION. THE CHICAGO COMMODITY EXCHANGE (CME) AND OTHER TRADITIONAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS ARE OPERATING 24 HOURS A DAY, AS ENCRYPTED CURRENCY HAS PROVEN THAT MARKETS NEED NOT BE CLOSED. ENCRYPTED MONEY EXCHANGES HAVE ALSO BEGUN TO PROVIDE TRADITIONAL ASSETS — OIL, SILVER, INDICES — BECAUSE USERS HAVE SHOWN THAT ANY PLATFORM THAT PROVIDES SUFFICIENT LIQUIDITY AND LOWER-COST INFORMATION PRICING WILL ATTRACT THEIR NEEDS。
The block chains are becoming a bridge between the two。
Encryption CurrencyAs Finance SectionEvolution of technology
Like any other technology, the web forum views the prospects for the use of encrypted currencies as well. They believe that encrypted currencies either build a new and independent financial system or collapse because of their own development. In practice, however, the development of encrypted currencies is in between. The same applies to the development of the Internet。
As people still disagree about the Internet, or see it as the beginning of a new world, the Internet is becoming commodified and eventually everywhere, and almost the entire world depends on it to operate. Today, there is no longer debate about the use of the Internet, which has become a common basis for underpinning emerging technologies。
This is exactly what I think is happening in the area of encrypted currency. The technology associated with encrypted money may not have met the initial passwords’ expectations. I doubt that most of them even care; at least I don't。
A parallel external market is expanding steadily in many dimensions of the financial system as the internal market is busy discussing bitcoin cycles and declining trends. The payment infrastructure, proxy commerce, integrated price discovery platforms, and today ' s multi-asset brokering, whether at a bitcoin price of $60,000 or $100,000, are flourishing。
Charlie Booth of Hepworth Iron Capital, in a visiting commentary article published last week in Token Dispatch, provided an excellent explanation of the internal-external market evolution。
What interests me most is that a technology that was originally used to trade coins is now being used to allow bulk investors to get $5 worth of apple shares on Saturday to stabilize the dollar, at a fee of less than a cent, all based on the infrastructure originally built for the monetization。
These possibilities arise only when the new infrastructure is much better than the old one it replaced. We all know that old habits are hard to change. And the world is discovering that block chains are a panacea for improving financial performance. In some cases, block chains function through traditional systems of lubrication; in others, through the outright replacement of old and obsolete systems. Change for change is unwise。
For any human-operated industry, resisting changes that can improve the way the existing system works is tantamount to suicide. This is because human beings are inherently eager to improve inefficient systems. Anything that improves the efficiency of the system will be adopted, no matter how novel and radical it may seem. The development of block chain technology is in an area where there is considerable room for upgrading and where such inefficiencies can be effectively reduced. Traditional institutions and markets, such as NASDAQ, the New York Stock Exchange and the Chicago Commodity Exchange, have adopted block-chain technologies, amply demonstrating the growing role of block-chains in future finance。
Every exchange is now a broker (or soon to become a broker). Not all exchanges anticipate this, but this is what they want to be. What happens next? Who is the ultimate winner when each platform provides stocks, derivatives, forecast markets and encrypted money on the same application? The key lies in how they integrate these assets into their respective platforms and enable users to perform some of the most basic operations in the financial sector: consumption, transfers, collection and making money。
