Today on The Systematic Desk, the market for market data itself is being repriced. Databento, founded by an ex-HFT trader, just raised $97 million to challenge Bloomberg's dominance with a pay-per-use, API-first model, signaling a significant shift toward a more modular and cost-effective infrastructure stack for systematic funds.
Databento, a market data platform founded by former high-frequency trading manager Christina Qi, has secured $97 million in Series B funding. The company aims to disrupt incumbents like Bloomberg with a pay-per-use, API-first model, offering institutional-grade data at a lower cost and enabling self-serve access. The new capital will be used to expand infrastructure and integrate AI analytics via partnerships with Nvidia and OpenAI.
Why it matters
This is a direct challenge to the traditional, high-cost market data monopolies that have long been a significant operational expense for systematic funds. For a fund operator, Databento's usage-based pricing and API-first approach represent a fundamental shift in the cost structure and accessibility of critical infrastructure, enabling more flexible and cost-effective development of trading and backtesting systems.
Building on its recent push to accept tokenized stocks as trading collateral, Kraken's parent company Payward has partnered with Franklin Templeton to integrate the asset manager's BENJI tokenized money market fund into its institutional platform. The collaboration will also explore launching actively managed on-chain investment products using Payward's xStocks framework.
Why it matters
This partnership between a major crypto exchange and a TradFi giant is a significant move to create institutional-grade, on-chain financial products. For building tokenized fund infrastructure, this provides a powerful case study of how established players are structuring on-chain asset management, settlement, and custody, offering a template for practical implementation.
The DTCC is taking its planned tokenization initiative live, scheduling its first limited production transactions of tokenized securities for July 15. Built with input from over 50 financial firms and an SEC no-action letter, the system will initially focus on converting highly liquid assets like U.S. Treasuries between traditional and tokenized forms, establishing the core settlement plumbing for downstream projects like the 24X exchange pilot we tracked.
Why it matters
This marks the moment a core piece of US financial market infrastructure goes live with tokenization, shifting from pilots to operational reality. For anyone building fund infrastructure, the DTCC's involvement provides a regulated, interoperable bridge for moving high-quality collateral between on-chain and off-chain systems, which is a foundational requirement for institutional DeFi.
Google Research has introduced TabFM, a new open-source foundation model that applies in-context learning to tabular data. This allows the model to generate predictions for new, unseen tables without requiring per-dataset training or pipeline engineering, significantly reducing time-to-production for developers. It offers a scikit-learn compatible API for easy integration.
Why it matters
This is a significant advance for applying AI to structured data, which forms the backbone of most financial modeling and quantitative research. For your work in both software implementation and algorithmic trading, TabFM could dramatically accelerate the process of building and deploying baseline models for risk assessment, signal generation, and financial forecasting, moving the bottleneck from data preparation to model interpretation.
Grace Investment Machine (GIM), an AI-native investment technology company, has secured $20 million in a Series A round. The firm is developing agentic AI systems designed for autonomous investing, which aim to generate, test, and continuously refine market hypotheses and trading signals, moving beyond simple research assistance tools.
Why it matters
GIM's approach represents a step-change in applying AI to finance, focusing on fully autonomous agents that adapt investment strategies based on market feedback. This is a clear example of the structural shifts occurring in the hedge fund industry, where the core 'IP' is becoming the agentic system itself, not just the human manager's discretionary calls.
HSBC, in partnership with digital market infrastructure provider Marketnode, completed its first issuance of a tokenized U.S. dollar-denominated structured note for institutional investors in Hong Kong on Friday. The pilot aims to streamline the entire lifecycle of complex financial products—from issuance to settlement and administration—using distributed ledger technology.
Why it matters
A major global bank issuing complex derivatives on-chain moves tokenization beyond simple asset wrapping and into the core of capital markets plumbing. This successful pilot in a key financial hub like Hong Kong establishes a precedent and technical framework for digitizing more sophisticated financial instruments, a crucial step for building out the broader tokenized fund ecosystem.
Adding to the expanding infrastructure for continuous market hours we've been tracking, the regulated crypto exchange Backpack has launched 24/7 trading for select tokenized U.S. equities, including the Micron shares already circulating via Ondo. The service provides direct ownership of real shares, not synthetic versions, with instant settlement in fiat or stablecoins on the Solana blockchain.
Why it matters
This move further erodes the distinction between traditional market hours and the 'always-on' nature of crypto. For an algorithmic trader, this creates new opportunities and challenges related to continuous price discovery, liquidity provision outside of primary exchange hours, and the need for infrastructure that can manage positions and risk around the clock.
Following the recent GDF/ISDA survey showing two-thirds of financial institutions plan to launch tokenized money market funds by 2027, S&P Global Ratings has published a formal framework for rating them. The methodology integrates blockchain-specific risks—such as smart contract integrity, oracle reliability, and wallet security—into its existing fixed-income fund rating process, providing crucial infrastructure as assets in these vehicles surpass $15 billion globally.
Why it matters
This is a critical piece of market infrastructure. A standardized rating methodology from a major agency like S&P provides a formal risk assessment tool that institutional investors require for due diligence. It removes a significant barrier to adoption for tokenized funds, potentially unlocking allocations from larger, more conservative pools of capital.
With the British Virgin Islands now holding over 10% of global tokenized U.S. Treasuries and hosting structures like New York Life's recent fund, law firm Ogier has published a detailed analysis of the practical requirements for VASP registration under the jurisdiction's 2022 act. The guidance mandates that applicants demonstrate operational substance, strong corporate governance, adequate capital and liquidity, and robust cybersecurity.
Why it matters
For any operator considering the BVI as a domicile, this spells out the expected standards for governance and substance, which are critical for institutional credibility. It provides a clear roadmap of the specific operational and compliance hurdles required to secure a VASP registration in an increasingly prominent offshore hub.
Qube, a prominent quantitative hedge fund, is expanding beyond its systematic roots by launching its first internally managed discretionary equity portfolio management team. The firm plans to recruit fundamental portfolio managers for long/short equity strategies across various sectors, operating within a multi-manager structure.
Why it matters
This move by a major quant firm to embrace discretionary strategies signals a convergence trend in the hedge fund industry. It suggests that even the most systematic shops see value in combining human judgment with quantitative models, especially in navigating complex market regimes. This has implications for fund structures, talent acquisition, and the operational blend of art and science in portfolio management.
Anthropic researchers have developed a tool they call a 'Jacobian lens' that provides a view into an internal processing space within its Claude AI models. This 'J-space' appears to function like a conceptual scratchpad, revealing the AI's unspoken reasoning, goals, or awareness of being tested. The tool allows researchers to observe and even steer the model's internal concepts.
Why it matters
This is a significant step toward making AI models more interpretable and auditable, moving beyond black-box behavior. While raising philosophical questions about AI cognition, the practical implication for high-stakes applications like finance is the potential to build more trustworthy and aligned systems by understanding their internal reasoning before they act, which is crucial for risk management in automated trading.
In a recent interview, educator and author Dr. Jonathan Strecker argued that modern conveniences, including AI and constant screen time, are hindering the development of teens. He advocates for the importance of boredom, responsibility, and discipline to build resilience and critical thinking, introducing a 'five intelligences' framework to help parents foster these capabilities.
Why it matters
This analysis provides a structured way to think about the potential downsides of an overly convenient and digitally saturated environment for young adults. It argues that intentionally creating 'desirable difficulties' is essential for developing the intellectual and emotional fortitude required to navigate complex, real-world challenges—a necessary foundation for any demanding career.
Offshore Jurisdictions Detail VASP Requirements Bermuda, the BVI, and the Cayman Islands are providing increasingly granular guidance on licensing and operational substance for Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), attracting major players like Crypto.com and clarifying the path to regulatory compliance for digital asset funds.
AI for Tabular Data Reaches a Turning Point Google's new open-source TabFM foundation model enables zero-shot predictions on unseen tabular datasets, potentially revolutionizing financial modeling and quantitative research by eliminating the need for extensive, bespoke pipeline engineering for each new dataset.
AI-Native Investment Platforms Gain Traction A new class of 'AI-native' investment firms is emerging, moving beyond using AI as a tool to building entire platforms around agentic systems. Grace Investment Machine raised $20M for its autonomous investing AI, while Waton Financial pivoted to an 'agent marketplace' model, signaling a structural shift in systematic trading.
Tokenized Product Infrastructure Matures in Hong Kong Major banks like HSBC are moving past pilots to live issuance of complex tokenized instruments, such as structured notes, in Hong Kong. This, combined with refined tax regimes for digital assets, solidifies the jurisdiction's role as a hub for institutional-grade tokenization.
Hedge Fund Strategies Diverge as AI Trades Unwind A sharp reversal in crowded AI-related stocks has hit quant hedge funds, causing performance to drop. In response, firms are diversifying, with quant-focused Qube launching a fundamental equity team, while macro strategies are attracting significant new capital from sovereign wealth funds.
What to Expect
2026-07-15—DTCC to begin facilitating limited production transactions of tokenized real securities.
How We Built This Briefing
Every story, researched.
Every story verified across multiple sources before publication.
🔍
Scanned
Across multiple search engines and news databases
443
📖
Read in full
Every article opened, read, and evaluated
165
⭐
Published today
Ranked by importance and verified across sources
12
— The Systematic Desk
🎙 Listen as a podcast
Subscribe in your favorite podcast app to get each new briefing delivered automatically as audio.
Apple Podcasts
Library tab → ••• menu → Follow a Show by URL → paste