Nasdaq’s move towards 23-hour equity trading led a week of changes in market access and infrastructure. Indonesia advanced its planned commodity exchange, mainland Chinese insurers gained access to Hong Kong-listed ETFs and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission began examining an emerging derivatives market for AI computing capacity.

Institutional digital-asset activity also broadened. The SEC proposed tailored capital-raising exemptions for crypto investment contracts, Securitize and Neuberger launched a tokenised high-yield fund, Citi prepared a bitcoin-custody service and Deribit secured approval to expand its spot offering.

Read more on the week's key developments:

1. Nasdaq targets December launch for 23-hour equity trading

Nasdaq said on 18 August that it expects to introduce a 9pm-to-4am overnight session on 6 December, extending US equity trading to 23 hours a day, five days a week. The SEC approved the rule change on 10 April, although implementation remains subject to Securities Information Processor readiness and any remaining SEC rule changes.

The launch will extend overnight trading beyond alternative venues into a major US exchange and the consolidated market-data system. NYSE Arca and Cboe EDGX have approval for comparable schedules, making market-maker participation, spreads and broker connectivity important to whether overnight liquidity deepens or remains dispersed. Unlike the dynamic price bands used during regular trading, overnight orders will be subject to static bands based on the previous closing and late-session prices.

2. Citi wins $380 billion Aegon Asset Management middle-office mandate

Citi Investor Services agreed on 13 August to expand its custody relationship with Aegon Asset Management, adding middle-office services across roughly $380 billion in assets under management. These include investment book of record reporting, trade management and settlement, and performance measurement through Aladdin Accounting. The mandate extends an existing custody and fund-accounting relationship of more than 20 years. Aegon’s operations employees in Budapest transferred to Citi as part of the transition.

The mandate moves investment-book, trade-management and performance functions from Aegon to Citi alongside the transferring Budapest employees, giving the bank greater operational scale on BlackRock’s Aladdin platform. Its scope extends the relationship beyond custody and fund accounting into Aegon’s daily investment operations.

3. Indonesia targets January 2027 launch for state-backed mineral and commodity exchange

Indonesia’s government said on 14 August that it aims to launch a state-backed mineral and strategic commodities exchange on 1 January 2027. The exchange will operate under the supervision of the Financial Services Authority (OJK) and is expected to cover nickel, tin, gold, coal, gas and oil. Implementing regulations are targeted for 17 September, while President Prabowo Subianto said Indonesia should be prepared to withhold commodities from buyers unwilling to accept its reference prices.

Together with Indonesia’s wider commodity-export reforms, the exchange is intended to improve transaction transparency, curb under-invoicing and establish domestic reference prices. Indonesia’s scale gives it leverage, particularly in nickel, although much of its output differs from the high-purity metal underlying London and Shanghai contracts. Its influence will depend on the products covered, liquidity and acceptance among foreign buyers.

4. SEC proposes Regulation Crypto Assets for token capital-raising

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed Regulation Crypto Assets on 18 August, creating two capital-raising exemptions for covered crypto investment contracts. One would permit offerings of up to $5 million over four years, while the other would permit offerings of up to $75 million during each 12-month period, subject to additional disclosure and ongoing reporting requirements. It also proposed a conditional safe harbour under which a crypto asset would be deemed no longer subject to an investment contract for purposes of the Securities Act and Exchange Act definitions of “security”. The comment period runs for 60 days from publication in the Federal Register.

The exemptions would give issuers tailored federal routes for raising capital, while the safe harbour would clarify when a crypto asset is no longer subject to an investment contract. The framework could reduce reliance on conventional securities-registration processes, although its effect will depend on the final requirements and issuers’ use of the new routes.

5. HKEX opens Hong Kong ETFs to mainland insurance funds via Southbound Stock Connect

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing said on 18 August that China’s National Financial Regulatory Administration will allow mainland insurance funds to invest in Hong Kong-listed exchange-traded funds through Southbound Stock Connect. The channel had 31 eligible ETFs at the end of June. Average daily Southbound ETF turnover reached HKD 5.8 billion ($739 million) in the first seven months, up 61% year on year.

The move extends Southbound ETF access from existing mainland investors to a major pool of long-term institutional capital, potentially broadening the investor base and supporting liquidity in eligible Hong Kong products. Its effect will depend on the implementation timetable, the range of ETFs available and how insurers allocate capacity within regulatory limits on overseas investment.

6. Securitize and Neuberger launch tokenised high-yield bond fund

Securitize and Neuberger launched a tokenised high-yield fund on 18 August, with the $230 billion fixed-income manager acting as subadvisor in its first such role for a tokenised fund. The fund issues units across Avalanche, Ethereum, Solana and Sui, taking tokenised funds beyond predominantly cash and government-securities strategies into higher-risk corporate credit.

Neither firm disclosed the fund’s initial assets under management or investor base, so the launch demonstrates technical capability without confirming institutional demand. Subsequent inflows and investor participation will provide a clearer measure of whether tokenised high-yield exposure attracts capital than its availability across four blockchains.

7. Blackstone-backed QTS markets $3.9 billion Microsoft-linked data-centre bond

Special-purpose subsidiaries of Blackstone-backed QTS Realty Trust marketed a $3.9 billion five-year bond on 17 and 18 August to finance a Georgia data-centre campus built for Microsoft. According to Bloomberg, the Project Odyssey transaction was increased by roughly $1 billion from preliminary terms after early orders exceeded $8 billion. Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley managed the sale.

The bonds were marketed with coupons in the high-6% range and yields in the low-to-mid-7% range despite expected Baa3/BBB- ratings. The relatively wide pricing for debt expected to sit at the bottom of investment grade indicates the additional compensation investors sought for the project and financing structure.

8. Citi sets bitcoin custody launch under new Custody+ platform

Citi announced on 18 August that it expects to launch bitcoin custody for institutional clients later this year under a new platform, Custody+, run through Citi Investor Services. The platform is designed to combine crypto and traditional-asset custody, real-time asset servicing, instant settlement and tokenised-deposit movement in one system.

BNY already provides regulated bitcoin and ether custody, while U.S. Bank offers bitcoin custody using NYDIG as sub-custodian. Citi’s planned model would integrate bitcoin with its existing custody, cash and asset-servicing systems. Its significance will depend on the launch date, control of the underlying keys and the clients and assets it attracts.

9. Deribit secures VARA broker-dealer licence in Dubai

Deribit, the crypto options and futures venue owned by Coinbase, obtained a Broker-Dealer Licence from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) on 13 August. The licence allows spot orders placed through Deribit to be routed to Coinbase Exchange for execution, expanding the assets and liquidity available through its spot offering.

The approval links Deribit’s client interface and derivatives ecosystem with Coinbase Exchange’s centralised order book while retaining Deribit as the client-facing venue. Its commercial effect will depend on whether the additional liquidity improves Deribit’s spot volumes, spreads and execution quality.

10. CFTC seeks comment on emerging compute derivatives market

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sought public comment on 19 August on derivatives tied to computing capacity, covering the underlying cash market, market oversight and manipulation, customer protection and perpetual compute futures. The consultation follows CME Group’s plan to launch futures on 5 October tracking hourly rental prices for Nvidia H100 and B200 graphics-processing units, subject to regulatory review.

Compute derivatives could give data-centre operators, cloud providers and AI developers a way to hedge fluctuations in processing costs. Their viability will depend on whether the standardised benchmarks adequately reflect exposures across a fragmented rental market and whether the contracts attract sufficient commercial participation and liquidity.

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