BridgePort Pilots Digital Asset Master Agreement to Streamline Off-Exchange Settlement Onboarding

Institutional digital-asset firms may be able to trade without placing assets directly on an exchange, but establishing the legal relationships behind that model can remain a lengthy process. BridgePort is seeking to reduce that friction with a common contractual framework for off-exchange settlement arrangements involving trading firms, custodians and execution venues.

The company is piloting the Digital Asset Master Agreement (DAMA), a reusable legal template intended to replace some of the bespoke negotiations required whenever counterparties establish a new off-exchange settlement relationship. BridgePort is forming a working group of trading firms, custodians and exchanges to test the framework across live arrangements.

Off-exchange settlement allows a trading firm to retain assets with a custodian while trading across multiple venues. The structure can reduce assets held directly at exchanges and make collateral available across a wider range of trading relationships. Its practical benefits, however, depend on agreements defining how collateral, credit, settlement and default will be handled between the three parties.

Those agreements can take months to negotiate because each relationship may involve different custody structures, regulatory obligations and operational processes. DAMA is designed to provide a common set of definitions and contractual provisions while preserving the ability to configure the terms for individual counterparties.

The framework can, for example, specify whether collateral is held in trust or pledged under a security interest. Participants can also determine whether DAMA operates independently or refers to an existing International Swaps and Derivatives Association agreement.

“The infrastructure for off-exchange settlement is largely in place,” said Nirup Ramalingam, CEO of BridgePort. “The next phase of this market depends on standardizing the legal foundation beneath it, as has happened in every institutional market before. A shared standard lowers the barrier to entry and gives the market room to scale. DAMA will give the industry that foundation.”

The agreement covers four areas that can create legal and operational uncertainty in off-exchange settlement relationships.

Its custody provisions define how collateral is safeguarded and segregated, including whether assets are held in trust or pledged. Settlement terms address how credit is extended against that collateral, how balances are reconciled and how the settlement cycle operates.

The operational provisions establish how parties respond to erroneous transfers, failed settlements and outages affecting the balance information exchanged between custodians and venues. Default and termination clauses cover events such as venue insolvency or failure, together with close-out procedures, termination rights and the return of collateral.

Standardising these provisions could reduce the amount of legal work required for each new connection. The wider effect will depend on whether custodians, venues and trading firms are prepared to adopt the framework rather than continue using their own agreements.

“The long-term value of standardization extends well beyond faster onboarding,” said Steve Bartfield, chief product officer at BridgePort. He added that commonly adopted frameworks could allow market participants, law firms and industry bodies to develop legal analysis, operational expertise and market practices that can be reused across the sector.

DAMA takes inspiration from the role that master agreements play in established financial markets, but it is intended specifically for the tri-party relationships underpinning digital-asset off-exchange settlement. The pilot will test whether a shared foundation can accommodate different regulatory, commercial and custody models without recreating the agreement for every relationship.

BridgePort provides middleware for coordinating credit allocation and post-trade activity between trading firms, exchanges and custodians. DAMA extends that coordination proposition into the legal layer, addressing an onboarding constraint that technology integrations alone cannot resolve.

Muriel Siebert Selects tZERO for Tokenised Securities

Muriel Siebert & Co. has selected tZERO to provide the digital securities infrastructure for its new asset tokenisation business. Siebert, which manages some $20 billion in assets, is deploying tZERO’s technology stack to support its expansion into DLT-based investments. The platform will handle the entire lifecycle of Siebert’s digital assets, covering investor onboarding, compliance, custody, and secondary market trading.

The first investment product to be supported on Siebert’s tZERO’s platform will be GLDY, a gold-backed, yield-bearing tokenised security developed by Streamex. Siebert will provide private placement services utiising Rule 506(c) of Regulation D under the Securities Act to offer tokenised securities to accredited investors through its traditional brokerage channels.

Circle Set to Diversify Services via Trust Bank

Circle, the issuer of the world’s largest regulated stablecoin – USDC – has received approval from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., a national trust bank. The bank will operate under the name Circle National Trust.

Via its trust bank, Circle will be able to offer digital asset custody services to itself, its affiliates, and to a limited number of institutional customers. Those customers could include banks and other financial institutions, such as regulated derivatives organisations. It also can manage its USDC Reserve fund directly, reducing costs and bringing the operation under federal regulatory oversight to further enhance the safety, transparency, and trust of USDC.

Strategically, the trust capability allows Circle to diversify from mainly issuing stablecoins to becoming a fuller service infrastructure provider to institutions issuing tokenised assets. Such a broadening of its services could be important as Circle is likely to face increased competition for stablecoin issuance once the Open Standard’s Open USD launches later this year.

Raiffeisen Bank International Upgrades to Broadridge’s BRx Match Platform

Centralised Raiffeisen International Services & Payments S.R.L. (CRISP), the shared service centre for Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), has adopted Broadridge’s cloud-based BRx Match reconciliation platform. The system upgrade aims to enhance operational efficiency, transparency, and accuracy across 14 markets in Europe and Asia, including the DACH region and Central and Eastern Europe.

The deployment is designed to accommodate a projected fourfold increase in CRISP’s transaction volumes. BRx Match offers improved exception management, enhanced automation, and seamless integration with ISO 20022 messaging standards. The transition involves both new system implementations and migrations from previous Broadridge solutions.

This agreement builds upon a partnership between CRISP and Broadridge that began in 2009. The upgraded technology infrastructure provides a scalable foundation to support CRISP’s future operational growth and regulatory compliance requirements, whilst simultaneously reducing its overall risk exposure.

Horizon Trading Solutions Expands Market Making Capabilities on Kalshi

Horizon Trading Solutions has expanded its electronic trading platform to provide market-making capabilities on Kalshi, the CFTC-regulated prediction market. This update equips institutional clients with native connectivity to trade event-driven contracts, responding to the accelerating adoption of these instruments within capital markets.

The enhanced platform enables market makers, liquidity providers, and proprietary trading firms to quote, trade, and hedge event contracts alongside traditional cash equities and listed derivatives. The infrastructure is specifically engineered to handle high message volumes and support the continuous trading necessary for modern event markets.

Addressing the unique characteristics of prediction markets, such as rapid repricing and probability-based quoting, the system offers low-latency execution and operates continuously, 24 hours a day. Furthermore, it incorporates comprehensive cross-venue risk management tools, allowing firms to monitor and manage their liquidity and exposure efficiently.

Wayve Completes $85 Million Employee Tender on the London Stock Exchange’s Private Securities Market

Autonomous driving AI company Wayve has completed the first transaction on the London Stock Exchange’s (LSE) Private Securities Market. The $85 million employee tender offer provided liquidity to staff with vested equity through a permissioned auction. The transaction was facilitated by Stifel, Crowdcube, Latham & Watkins, and Deloitte.

The LSE’s Private Securities Market is built upon the UK Government’s PISCES framework. It allows private businesses to conduct intermittent liquidity auctions using public market infrastructure without going public. This system enables companies to retain control over trading frequency, investor access, and pricing, whilst offering shareholders and employees a new route to liquidity.

Following a May 2025 UK Government update, Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) and Company Share Option Plan (CSOP) options can now be exercised and sold on PISCES venues whilst maintaining their tax-efficient status. This regulatory alignment provides private firms using the platform with a valuable mechanism to incentivise and retain talent.

FIX Trading Community Adopts Automated Development Workflow for the FIX Standard

The FIX Trading Community has adopted an automated development workflow for the FIX Standard. This new approach is built on the Orchestra Domain Specific Language (DSL) and utilises tooling provided by Atomic Wire Technology. The initiative moves the standards development process from manual repository maintenance to a structured, machine-readable format.

Proposed modifications to the standard can now be automatically validated, merged, and used to generate updated repository artefacts. This automated pipeline introduces early validation to detect incompatibilities and inconsistencies. It also establishes a complete audit trail of the standard’s evolution and facilitates parallel development across multiple working groups. Furthermore, the build process automatically produces derived artefacts, such as FIXML schemas and implementation reports, to ensure consistency.

This implementation marks the initial phase of a wider programme to modernise the infrastructure behind the FIX Standard. By establishing this automated pipeline, the community is laying the groundwork for improved publication, consumption, and integration of the standard within the financial technology sector.

CryptoStruct Integrates Kalshi Event Contracts Into Low-Latency Trading Platform

CryptoStruct, the low-latency trading and market data solutions provider, has announced a connectivity integration with Kalshi, the CRTC regulated event trading exchange. The integration incorporates Kalshi’s expanding suite of event contracts – covering macroeconomics, politics, commodities, and sports – directly into CryptoStruct’s unified API and co-located global infrastructure.

By normalising Kalshi’s data into the same format used across its 30 other supported venues, CryptoStruct enables trading firms to blend multiple data feeds and execute cross-venue strategies without additional integration work. The setup maintains deterministic performance and ultra-low-latency capabilities across markets.

Additionally, the integration supports the entire strategy lifecycle on Kalshi, from historical data research and backtesting to live execution. Powered by CryptoStruct’s event-driven Strategy SDK, the platform is capable of running thousands of trading strategies in parallel.

N5X Selects Vermiculus to Deliver VeriClear System for Brazilian Energy Market

Market infrastructure technology provider Vermiculus has been selected by N5X, the upcoming Brazilian energy derivatives clearing house, to deploy its cloud-native VeriClear clearing system. The solution will support N5X in establishing a new clearing house and operating as a central counterparty (CCP). This project marks Vermiculus’ fourth clearing, risk, and settlement system deployment in South America since 2022.

The partnership aims to modernise Brazil’s energy market, which is currently the sixth largest globally, consuming approximately 632 TWh of electricity annually. By implementing VeriClear, N5X will transition the region’s energy sector from an uncleared over-the-counter (OTC) environment to a regulated futures trading and clearing system.

The modular platform provides N5X with full control over its clearing operations. This structure allows the clearing house to accelerate the launch of new energy products, manage risk effectively, and scale infrastructure to accommodate rising transaction volumes and market participants.

BondWave and Fintech Global Center Announce Partnership to Integrate Fixed Income Platforms

BondWave LLC and Fintech Global Center (FGC) have announced a strategic partnership to integrate their respective fixed income platforms, Effi and FGC TMS. This collaboration embeds each system’s capabilities into the other, providing users with a comprehensive pre- and post-trade workflow within a single platform.

Through this agreement, users of the FGC TMS will gain access to BondWave’s Market Calculator and price discovery tools. This integration provides real-time market data to support fair pricing, best execution requirements, and informed investment decisions prior to execution.

Simultaneously, BondWave’s Effi users will be able to utilise FGC TMS’s order and execution management system (OMS/EMS) capabilities. This connects users to liquidity across all major fixed income alternative trading systems (ATSs) and supports the full trade lifecycle, including execution, clearing, settlement, reporting, and compliance management.