Insight Category: Company news

Zurich, Switzerland; 27 January 2026 – RULEMATCH today announces the launch of its triparty settlement service designed to empower financial institutions to trade bilaterally with confidence and settle on-demand using the proven institutional-grade clearing infrastructure of RULEMATCH. Against the backdrop of a widely fragmented crypto market, the RULEMATCH triparty settlement service adds a new layer of trust by removing principal settlement risk for bilateral trading parties, while providing enhanced capital efficiency.

RULEMATCH CCO Stefan Lütolf commented, “The post-trade clearing and settlement system of RULEMATCH is a cornerstone of what has made the RULEMATCH interbank venue attractive to banks and securities firms. Now we are making these clearing capabilities available to participants who trade off-exchange so they can trade more flexibly and efficiently – without principal settlement risk.”

 

A proven clearing and settlement system for crypto markets

Triparty settlement from RULEMATCH leverages the proven clearing and settlement infrastructure already in use on the RULEMATCH interbank trading venue. Since the launch of multi-lateral trading and settlement in December 2023, the RULEMATCH clearing and settlement system has completed over 500 cycles without fail.

In the triparty settlement process, trade reports from participating counterparties are delivered to the RULEMATCH matching engine, running the multi-matching engine trade software of Nasdaq, and are automatically netted. At the conclusion of the clearing cycle – configured by the participants – the trading parties deliver their respective obligations as calculated by RULEMATCH. The system supports ad hoc renegotiation of cycle specifications (cut-off times and deadlines).

Both crypto assets and fiat currencies reserved for settlement are held off-balance sheet at all times, the former in fully segregated wallets, the latter in fiduciary accounts at AA+-rated, state-guaranteed Luzerner Kantonalbank. The delivery-versus-payment (DvP) process is initiated only when obligations from both parties are delivered. Settlement transfers are initiated simultaneously, and the process is deemed final once all transfers are completed, at which point entitlements are made available to the parties.

 

Making bilateral trading frictionless

The new settlement service from RULEMATCH helps remove a significant layer of friction in bilateral crypto trading. With no principal settlement (Herstatt) risk, financial institutions can now expand risk limits in their trading operations and can trade and settle at any time with confidence – with a wider range of counterparties.

Meanwhile, they retain the capital efficiency advantage of netting, which also removes the need for multiple blockchain transactions for settlement purposes.

The RULEMATCH triparty settlement service can be particularly helpful for OTC trading firms, brokers, and active trading firms. Previously, bilateral trading parties often operated under a free-of-payment settlement process – forcing one party to settle first. Now, however, instead of facing principal settlement risk through delayed or confusing asset transfers – they can rely on proven post-trade infrastructure that streamlines operations and provides greater security.

Users of the RULEMATCH triparty settlement service must be onboarded as participants of RULEMATCH AG in Switzerland and are subject to the RULEMATCH rulebook.

 

 

About RULEMATCH

RULEMATCH is the premiere digital asset trading venue for financial institutions. It acts as a market operator for spot trading of the most liquid cryptocurrencies vs fiat. RULEMATCH is never a counterparty in trading. Fiat funds are held in fiduciary accounts with a state-guaranteed, AA+-rated Swiss bank and cryptocurrencies are handled on fully segregated wallets. With integrated multilateral clearing and post-trade settlement, as well as institutional-grade trading technology, RULEMATCH helps provide ultra-low latency, capital efficient trading and robust market integrity. Its offices and operations are located in Zürich. Its participant network is open to banks and securities firms only and limited to select countries. RULEMATCH is not available to US-based financial institutions.

For more information, visit: rulematch.com

Zurich, Switzerland; 18 November 2025 – RULEMATCH, the interbank spot crypto trading venue designed exclusively for financial institutions, today announces that Haruko, a leading global provider of institutional digital assets technology has integrated with RULEMATCH. This means that their mutual clients can access the guaranteed liquidity available on RULEMATCH while leveraging the advanced trade capture, portfolio and risk management services as well as data insights of Haruko.

As banks and securities firms continue to build out crypto services for their institutional clients, they are increasingly turning to more sophisticated service providers to meet the necessary standards for regulated financial institutions. The partnership between RULEMATCH, with its institutional-only client base and market structure modelled on traditional finance (multi-lateral, T+1 settlement with DvP) and Haruko with its institutional end-to-end digital asset workflow, including comprehensive liquidity analysis, stress testing and exposure tracking, will help equip financial institutions for the next evolution of the market.

RULEMATCH CCO Stefan Lütolf commented, “We are very glad that Haruko has chosen to integrate with RULEMATCH and give their institutional clients access to a truly high-performant trading venue that matches the advanced technical capabilities of the Haruko platform.”

As a pure market operator, RULEMATCH acts to bring together the buying and selling interests of its participants. Its spot market currently offers a central limit order book (CLOB) with guaranteed liquidity from designated market makers for the most liquid cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, with bilateral trading for additional pairs in a separate RFQ segment.

“This partnership marks another step toward a more connected and resilient digital asset market structure. As the industry moves toward 24/7, institutional-grade trading, we see integrations like this as key to shaping the future of finance,” said Michael Lie, Global Head of Digital Assets at Flow Traders. Flow Traders is a designated market maker on the RULEMATCH trading venue.

RULEMATCH also leverages Nasdaq’s pre-trade risk, matching engine and surveillance technology to help ensure the highest standards of market integrity for its participants.

“We’re excited to partner with RULEMATCH, strengthening our commitment to delivering institutional-grade solutions that meet the evolving needs of financial institutions deploying capital in the digital asset space,” said Shamyl Malik, CEO and Co-Founder of Haruko. “Together, we’re enabling clients to manage risk with clarity, precision, and confidence.”

RULEMATCH is open to participants who are regulated financial institutions from Switzerland and equivalently regulated countries. This allows them to trade with counterparties that operate within aligned regulatory frameworks. All participants are subject to verification, ongoing trading oversight, and transfer screening, ensuring the highest standards of compliance and market integrity.

Haruko’s unified platform is available to institutional clients, allowing them to benefit from aggregated insights, actionable analytics and scalable solutions to monitor, measure and manage digital asset risk. With focus on transparency and reliability, Haruko gives institutions the confidence to make informed decisions in increasingly complex markets.

 

About RULEMATCH

RULEMATCH is the premiere digital asset trading venue for financial institutions. It acts as a market operator for spot trading of the most liquid cryptocurrencies vs fiat. RULEMATCH is never a counterparty in trading. Fiat funds are held in fiduciary accounts with a state-guaranteed, AA+-rated Swiss bank and cryptocurrencies are handled on fully segregated wallets. With integrated multilateral clearing and post-trade settlement, as well as institutional-grade trading technology, RULEMATCH helps provide ultra-low latency, capital efficient trading and robust market integrity. Its offices and operations are located in Zürich. Its participant network is open to banks and securities firms only and limited to select countries. RULEMATCH is not available to US-based financial institutions.

For more information, visit: rulematch.com

 

About Haruko

Haruko provides the most comprehensive digital asset technology solution for institutions deploying capital across the digital asset ecosystem. Seamless consolidation of positions across exchanges, on-chain and OTC activity with access to real-time and historical pricing, risk and P&L reporting provides the transparency needed for effective treasury management, compliance, investor reporting and financial controllership functions.

Haruko has an experienced team of TradFi and digital industry veterans located across Europe and Asia supporting more than 90 institutional clients globally using the award-winning Haruko platform to optimize their front-, middle- and back-office workflows and operational controls.

For more information on Haruko, visit: haruko.com

SDX and RULEMATCH deliver a complete, end-to-end, institutional-grade solution for banks and financial institutions. This Swiss-made partnership signals the coming to age of the crypto market, centered around efficiency, security, and compliance.

Institutions will be able to trade on RULEMATCH’s platform with post-trade clearing and settlement, eliminating the need to pre-finance their trading activities. Using the integrated solution of SDX and RULEMATCH, they can hold crypto assets in SDX’s secure custody and easily manage clearing collateral on a dedicated SDX account. The integration removes the need to hold collateral with the trading venue, providing a seamless and secure solution.

Investors will also be able to increase their crypto collateral positions within seconds, avoiding the lengthy delays often associated with traditional on-chain transactions. The integrated solution with SDX’s custody services and RULEMATCH’s trading and settlement platform will be available from Q4 2024.

Commenting on the significance of the partnership, David Newns, Head of SIX Digital Exchange, said: “Until now, the digital asset space has been held back by concerns around speed, compliance and fragmentation. Our partnership with RULEMATCH tackles these issues head-on by providing transparency, capital efficiency and, crucially, a clear separation of trading and custody roles. This means institutional investors retain full control over their collateral via SDX’s custody and can segregate assets by crypto address, ensuring clarity on asset location at all times. As part of SIX, a trusted provider of global financial infrastructure, SDX continues to uphold the highest standards of security and compliance for institutional investors.”

David Riegelnig, CEO of RULEMATCH, added: “We have always believed that separating the roles of trading and custody is key to serving financial institutions in the digital assets industry. As a pure market operator, RULEMATCH is thrilled to partner with SDX and integrate its custody services with our trading and settlement platform. And we know from our participants that many of them would love to use a secure, independent custodian like SDX to manage the full lifecycle of their crypto asset holdings, while also leveraging the competitive advantages of trading and settling on RULEMATCH. Thanks to our partnership, they can do exactly that.”

More information about the solution here

 

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About SDX

SDX Group AG (SDX) and its subsidiaries operate financial market infrastructures (FMIs) for the issuance, trading, settlement, and custody of digital assets, licensed by FINMA, Switzerland’s financial market regulator. SDX operates a stock exchange through SDX Trading AG and SIX Digital Exchange AG, Switzerland’s first and only Central Securities Depository (CSD) on DLT. SDX Web3 AG is also part of the Group and offers institutional-grade crypto asset custody and staking solutions. As part of SIX Group, SDX is subject to the Group’s high quality and security standards covered under Swiss law. SDX is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland.

https://www.sdx.com/

 

About RULEMATCH

RULEMATCH is the premiere crypto and digital asset trading venue for financial institutions. It operates as a market operator for spot trading of the most liquid cryptocurrencies vs fiat. RULEMATCH is never a counterparty in trading. Fiat funds are held in fiduciary accounts with a state-guaranteed, AA+-rated Swiss bank and cryptocurrencies are handled on fully segregated wallets. With integrated multilateral clearing and post-trade settlement, as well as institutional-grade trading technology, RULEMATCH helps provide ultra-low latency, capital efficient trading and robust market integrity. Its offices and operations are located in Zurich – the heart of Europe. Its participant network is open to banks and securities firms only and limited to select countries. RULEMATCH is not available to US-based financial institutions.

www.rulematch.com

• The RULEMATCH spot trading venue has begun trading BTC and ETH versus USD.
• Only banks and securities firms may become RULEMATCH participants.
• RULEMATCH is never a counterparty in trading on the venue.
• Integrated post-trade settlement significantly lowers costs for institutions, removing the need to pre-fund trades.
• RULEMATCH provides the market integrity, capital efficiency and ultra-low latency that financial institutions have been missing.
• The venue uses Nasdaq technology for pre-trade risk checks, trade matching and market surveillance.

 

Zurich, Switzerland; 14 December 2023 – RULEMATCH has launched BTC and ETH spot trading against USD for its participants. It serves financial institutions, who have already been active in trading cryptocurrencies, allowing them to profit from execution and settlement capabilities not available in the otherwise retail-dominated market today. Only banks and securities firms from select countries may become RULEMATCH participants. Their benefits on RULEMATCH include trading on a central limit order book with execution times as low as 30 microseconds, as well as integrated post-trade settlement with multilateral clearing. This allows for trading with up to 75% less upfront liquidity required when compared to existing trading venues.

RULEMATCH currently counts seven banks and securities firms, including BBVA in Switzerland, a Swiss cantonal bank and DLT Finance as its initial participants.  More financial institutions are in the process of joining the venue.

 

 

RULEMATCH CEO David Riegelnig commented: “Despite often going unnoticed, a growing number of banks and financial institutions have actually been quite active in the crypto market. But, as we all know, they have faced challenges due to the many fundamental deficiencies in existing market infrastructure – capital efficiency, counterparty risk, compliance and latency. On RULEMATCH, these banks and their institutional clients are now expanding their activities and deploying many of the same strategies that they have used in traditional markets. This bodes well for liquidity and development in the market – and also for the next wave of evolution in digital assets.”

RULEMATCH participants trade in an anonymous central-limit-order book with liquidity guaranteed by designated market makers including Flow Traders, who has entered into a strategic partnership with RULEMATCH to provide institutional-grade liquidity. Bankhaus Scheich Wertpapierspezialist with its tech arm tradias also serves as a designated market maker on RULEMATCH.

Michael Lie, Flow Traders Global Head of Digital Assets, commented: “As a strategic market participant, Flow Traders works together with platforms that enable the institutionalization of the digital asset market. Working with RULEMATCH aligns with this objective and by being there as day one market maker, we can provide the institutional grade liquidity desired by financial institutions to support the adoption of digital asset and contribute to improving the broader financial ecosystem. We are delighted to be working with RULEMATCH and expanding our partnership in the future.”

RULEMATCH leverages Nasdaq’s pre-trade risk, trading, and market surveillance technology to provide an additional layer of transparency and resilience for institutional participants, enabling them to trade on RULEMATCH at speeds unrivalled in the crypto market today. The matching engine is hosted in two data centers in the Zurich metro area where RULEMATCH participants and their clients may cross connect and collocate.

“We wish RULEMATCH every success as they look to grow their business and help drive greater institutional participation in the crypto market,” said Magnus Haglind, Senior Vice President and Head of Products, Marketplace Technology at Nasdaq. “Nasdaq’s modular and scalable platform helps venues of all sizes get to market efficiently and attract liquidity through efficient and transparent trading. As traditional and digital asset markets increasingly converge, our institutional grade technology is well positioned to support the ongoing development of the digital asset ecosystem.”

RULEMATCH acts exclusively as a market operator that brings together the buying/selling interests of counterparties to execute and settle transactions. It is never a counterparty to a trade and does not offer brokerage or market making services. RULEMATCH does not provide custody except for the settlement process, including collateral management.

RULEMATCH facilitates multilateral net settlement among participants, allowing them to trade in a highly capital-efficient manner. At the same time, counterparty risk among participants is addressed with a strict delivery-vs-payment process and collateral requirements to protect against counterparty default. This allows RULEMATCH participants to trade with up to 75% less up-front liquidity needed, compared to the practice of pre-financing and credit lines currently prevalent in the crypto market.

The combination of integrated, post-trade settlement and ultra-low latency open up new possibilities for institutional clients of RULEMATCH participants, such as hedge funds and high-frequency traders.

RULEMATCH has partnered with Luzerner Kantonalbank AG (LUKB), a AA-rated, state-guaranteed Swiss bank, to handle qualified participant fiat funds used as collateral and for settlement in fiduciary accounts.

All cryptocurrencies on RULEMATCH are handled in segregated blockchain wallets using the Metaco Harmonize system, the institutional standard in custody technology in combination with IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Crypto Services, the industry’s only encryption service based on a hardware security module certified to FIPS 140-2 Level 4. With encryption and confidential computing capabilities from IBM Cloud, RULEMATCH can ensure the security of participants’ assets at the highest level.

Participants and flow of participant funds are subject to stringent controls against money laundering, sanction evasion and terrorist financing. RULEMATCH utilizes Elliptic’s Holistic Lens and Navigator capabilities to screen each and every wallet and transaction as part of its trading and settlement operations for regulated financial institutions. It is also able to screen wallets and transactions for risk in real-time and at scale.

Reference prices on RULEMATCH draw on data from market-leading provider Kaiko to support the integrity of price discovery and market surveillance.

Participants can connect to RULEMATCH via a range of options including cross-connection at Equinix ZH4, AWS Direct Connect and collocation in Green Data Centers in the Zurich metro area. A number of multi-asset OEMS technology providers are connecting to RULEMATCH; Wyden and Axon Trade have already done so.

RULEMATCH is supported by a select group of Swiss and international investors including Consensys Mesh, a company of Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin, Flow Traders and FiveT Fintech, formerly known as Avaloq Ventures.

RULEMATCH’s headquarters and systems are located in Zurich, Switzerland, positioning it centrally in Europe. The country’s clear regulatory framework and legal certainty for digital assets provide an advantageous environment for RULEMATCH’s operations.

 

The information about RULEMATCH is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered exhaustive. They do not imply any elements of a contractual relationship nor any offering. The information contained herein is directed at banks and securities firms. Any person without professional experience in matters relating to investments should not rely on this information.

 

RULEMATCH contact:
Ian Simpson
Director of Marketing & Communications

 

About RULEMATCH

RULEMATCH is the premiere digital asset trading venue for financial institutions. It operates as a market operator for spot trading of BTC and ETH versus USD. RULEMATCH is never a counterparty in trading. Fiat funds are held in fiduciary accounts with a state-guaranteed, AA-rated Swiss bank and cryptocurrencies are handled on fully segregated wallets. With integrated multilateral clearing and post-trade settlement, as well as institutional-grade trading technology, RULEMATCH helps provide ultra-low latency, capital efficient trading and robust market integrity. Its offices and operations are located in Zurich – the heart of Europe. Its participant network is open to banks and securities firms only and limited to select countries. RULEMATCH is not available to US-based financial institutions.