Benjamin Santos-Stephens

Benjamin Santos-Stephens

CEO, ClearToken

Bio

Entrepreneur and finance executive: Non-Executive Director at Digital Asset Fintech Globalcap and Managing Director at Laser Digital, Nomura's Digital Asset trading business. Formerly Global Head of Product Management at Instinet responsible for strategy & business development across Digital Assets, trading, post-trade, clearing and analytics.

Talks

Post-Trade Efficiency in Crypto Markets: Is Clearing and Collateral Management the Next Frontier?

Panel
Tuesday, March 31st 2026
10:55 - 11:35
tholos
Description

Crypto markets have matured rapidly on the front end: liquidity has deepened, institutional participation has grown, and the arrival of spot Bitcoin ETFs has brought a new class of investors into the market. But behind the scenes, the post-trade layer, the infrastructure that handles clearing, settlement, and collateral management, remains fragile, fragmented, and largely informal compared to traditional financial markets. The question is no longer whether post-trade matters in crypto. It is who bears the risk today, whether that is sustainable as volumes grow, and what needs to be built to support the next phase of institutional adoption. This panel brings together leaders from trading, market infrastructure, custody, and traditional finance to take an honest look at where crypto post-trade stands, what the real friction points are, and whether solutions like central clearing, tokenized collateral, and cross-venue interoperability are genuinely within reach. Against the backdrop of MiCA, DORA, and the UK's new regulatory framework, the conversation will also explore whether regulatory clarity accelerates the buildout or fragments the market further. With traditional exchanges moving toward 24/7 operations and crypto venues beginning to list equities, the convergence between TradFi and crypto post-trade infrastructure may be arriving faster than most expect.