Connamara Technologies

October 29, 2025

Via PR Newswire: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/architect-financial-technologies-launches-ax-global-regulated-exchange-for-perpetual-futures-on-traditional-financial-assets-302597794.html

CHICAGO, Oct. 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Architect Financial Technologies Inc. (“Architect” or “The Company”) announces the launch of AX, the first regulated exchange for trading perpetual futures on traditional underlying asset classes. AX offers novel perpetual contracts on foreign currencies, interest rates, single stocks, stock indexes, metals, energy, and other commodities.

AX is operated by the Company’s Bermuda-based affiliate Architect Bermuda Ltd. (“Architect Bermuda”), regulated by the Bermuda Monetary Authority (“BMA”). Architect Bermuda holds dual licenses under the BMA’s Investment Business Act and Digital Asset Business Act, providing AX customers the security of transacting under a robust and comprehensive regulatory regime.

AX’s perpetual futures contracts are standardized, centrally cleared, and matched on anonymous central limit order books. Backed by first-in-class matching engine technology built by Connamara Technologies, the exchange offers an advanced web-based user interface and low-latency APIs, with open source SDKs available in multiple programming languages. AX customers will be able to use both traditional fiat currency and digital asset stablecoins as collateral to meet margin requirements.

AX’s launch under Architect Bermuda’s regulatory licensure is a critical step forward for global derivatives trading, bringing key innovations in digital asset products to vast, comprehensively-regulated traditional financial markets. AX combines the security, transparency, and regulatory supervision of traditional futures markets with the capital efficiency, operational simplicity, and flexibility of digital asset non-expiring perpetual contracts. Offering instruments optimized for twenty-first-century market structure, AX aims to catalyze a new era in futures trading across the currencies, equities, credit, commodities, and insurance sectors.

AX is currently available to institutions — including hedge funds, market makers, family offices, asset managers, insurance and reinsurance companies, and lenders — in eligible jurisdictions. To learn more about AX and onboard to the exchange, visit https://architect.exchange or contact [email protected]. Sophisticated individual traders interested in trading on AX can access the waitlist at https://architect.exchange.

About Architect

Architect Financial Technologies Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides institutional trading technology, US electronic brokerage services, and a global perpetual futures exchange. Architect Securities LLC is a FINRA-registered Introducing Broker-Dealer for SEC-regulated securities and security derivatives. Architect Financial Derivatives LLC is an NFA-registered Independent Introducing Broker for CFTC-regulated derivatives. Architect Bermuda Ltd. is regulated under the Bermuda Monetary Authority and operates AX, a multi-asset perpetual futures exchange for institutional customers.

To learn more, please visit https://architect.exchange and https://architect.co.

This communication is for informational purposes only, and does not constitute a recommendation, investment, or legal advice. Readers should consult their investment, fiduciary, and/or legal advisors for guidance in making investment or business decisions.

SOURCE Architect Financial Technologies Inc

October 21, 2025

Via CNBC: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/architect-financial-technologies-launches-ax-global-regulated-exchange-for-perpetual-futures-on-traditional-financial-assets-302597794.html

DraftKings is acquiring predictions platform Railbird as it prepares to launch a mobile platform in the coming months to be called DraftKings Predictions.

Railbird is licensed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to offer an event contracts exchange. DraftKings targeted the company for its team and proprietary technology. 

“We are excited about the additional opportunity that prediction markets could represent for our business,” DraftKings CEO Jason Robins said in a statement to CNBC. “We believe that Railbird’s team and platform—combined with DraftKings’ scale, trusted brand, and proven expertise in mobile-first products—positions us to win in this incremental space.”

Predictions markets allow customers to trade on the outcomes of various events in the worlds of finance, culture and entertainment, which will allow DraftKings to expand beyond its sports betting business. The markets on election outcomes and sports are the most controversial.  

Dozens of states, their gaming regulators and tribes are suing or taking other actions to try to prohibit companies from offering trades based on sporting events, because they see it as unlicensed gambling.  

Nevada is among the states warning that companies risk losing their gambling licenses if they offer sports in their prediction markets.

If DraftKings offers sports events contracts, it’s likely to focus only on states that don’t offer licensed sports betting, like California and Texas, to avoid running afoul of the states where it offers sports betting.  Additionally, technology exists to prevent those sports trades from being available on tribal lands.  

DraftKings also may offer more advanced “know your customer” guardrails, a term commonly used to reference identity verification, given its experience in the regulated gambling market.  

September 23, 2025

Via CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/23/startup-zerohash-raises-104million-morgan-stanley-sofi-apollo.html

Crypto infrastructure startup Zerohash has raised $104 million in funding with backing from financial firms including Morgan Stanley and SoFi, CNBC has learned.

The Series D round was led by Interactive Brokers, the global automated trading firm, and includes strategic investors who are also clients of Zerohash, founder and CEO Edward Woodford told CNBC in an interview. The company is valued at $1 billion, he said.

“We wanted to raise from the largest, most trusted brands in the world and have that be the bridge into this new technology,” he said.

Funds managed by Apollo also participated in the round, according to Zerohash.

The startup is among a wave of firms, both publicly traded and privately held, taking advantage of the more favorable regulatory environment for cryptocurrencies under President Donald Trump.

After Trump took office this year, the government flipped from being highly skeptical of crypto under former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler to embracing it as a nascent technology.

Suddenly, the CEOs of financial firms including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America were expressing confidence that they would get involved. SoFi CEO Anthony Noto told CNBC in April that he was ready to bring crypto trading back after the regulatory shift.

Founded in 2017, Zerohash provides banks and fintech firms with the ability to offer blockchain-based products in three major areas: crypto trading, stablecoins and tokenization, according to Woodford.

“Part of this raise is obviously accelerating [adoption] across all three of those verticals with a range of customers who are also investors,” he said.

Interactive Brokers already uses Zerohash for crypto trading and custody and will launch a stablecoin product with the firm, Woodford said.

While Woodford said he couldn’t comment on whether Morgan Stanley and SoFi were also clients, he suggested announcements will be coming. Spokespeople for Morgan Stanley and SoFi declined to comment.

“These groups aren’t VCs,” Woodford said. “You can assume that there’s obviously a couple of announcements coming down the road with these other investors.”

Later Tuesday, Morgan Stanley said in a memo obtained by CNBC that it was close to offering crypto trading though its E-Trade division with the help of Zerohash.

September 10, 2025

Via Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/blockchain-lender-figure-raises-7875-million-us-ipo-2025-09-11/

Sept 10 (Reuters) – Stablecoin issuer Figure Technology, along with some of its existing investors, raised $787.5 million in a U.S. initial public offering on Wednesday, becoming the latest crypto firm to tap public markets as digital assets gain mainstream acceptance.

A string of regulatory wins under a pro-crypto White House, corporate treasury adoption and inflows from exchange-traded funds have spurred listings from the sector, which recently surpassed a market value of $4 trillion.

By Jim Downs, Co-Founder & CEO, Connamara Technologies

This piece originally ran in TRADERS MAGAZINE, August 15, 2025.

The last five years have seen the death of the all-night diner, the rise of bars with 9 PM last calls, and big box stores that don’t even rope-drop until brunch. But while the brick-and-mortar world has taken on the schedule of a senior center, the markets are just waking up. Traders don’t want downtime. They want uptime, all the time. Around-the-clock trading has taken off. And for all those once-weary business owners who swore there “weren’t enough hours in the day”? Good news: now there are.

The global economy is transforming overnight…every night. And to keep up, exchanges need to invest in the infrastructure that supports this massive shift in how (and when) we trade. Enter prediction markets, which have led the way toward normalizing 24/7/365 behaviors. Recently, Kalshi announced on its Discord channel that it would no longer close from 3-8 AM EST every day, and would be moving to 24/7 trading (save for two hours a week) on August 7.

The crypto boom of the last decade undoubtedly democratized and simplified trading for a natively global, first-time, or never-would-be audience. Along the way, many of the expectations and hangups of legacy markets evaporated, replaced by the always-on convenience of the internet. Crypto proved that trading and settlement can happen around the clock, and the technology behind it has only improved.

Where crypto paved the way, prediction markets picked up. Built on crypto infrastructure, these markets began with no suspensions for reporting or system maintenance. Unlike traditional capital markets, prediction markets aren’t bound by hyper-local assets or niche commodities. There’s no need to know how soybeans are grown in Indiana. Instead, users engage with global trends, reacting to the same publicly available information. Event contracts have a natural rhythm: spikes and lulls tied to real-world developments. A team’s best player is traded. A political scandal breaks. A climate report drops overnight in Europe. A Best Actress nominee’s old tweets resurface. Put another pot of coffee on.

Of course, this energy-drink-fueled, eyes-bloodshot trading style requires serious infrastructure. The exchange must be able to deploy and update its platform without suspending trading. To do that, prediction markets borrow from the playbooks of at-scale tech giants like Netflix, Meta, and Amazon. These companies use “rolling updates” and “blue-green deployments” to push changes seamlessly. You’ve never seen a “System Under Maintenance” screen while buying paper towels at 2 AM, and now you won’t while placing a trade, either.

The exchange must also be able to define a flexible “Trade Date” and trading day. That doesn’t always mean midnight to midnight. It might mean 4:30 PM to 4:30 PM, with trades between 4:30 PM and midnight assigned to the next day’s trade date. This is a structure often used for regulatory reporting or account settlement.

And finally, the infrastructure must support onboarding and funding around the clock. A user should be able to sign up, fund their account, and start trading within minutes, whether it’s noon or when the rooster crows. 

Prediction markets are thriving, particularly among Millennials and Gen Zers raised on the logic and dopamine loops of video games. But it’s not just about “gamifying” trading. It’s about rethinking access. These platforms succeed because they make trading easy to start, visually intuitive, instantly fundable, and nearly always available. The questions themselves are clear and accessible: Will the Pittsburgh Steelers win the Super Bowl? The probabilities are just as easy to grasp: 97% no, 3% yes. And the stakes can be low—users can participate with just $1, unlike traditional markets that often require hundreds or thousands just to get in the game.