LMAX Group has announced the launch of a ‘Universal Exchange,’ a unified execution venue designed to bridge the structural gap between digital assets and traditional finance. The move effectively ends the ‘Friday close’ for institutional FX traders on the platform, allowing foreign exchange and cryptocurrency pairs to be traded interchangeably 24/7 on a single credit line.
The Death of Business Hours
Institutional capital efficiency has long been hampered by the mismatch between crypto’s always-on nature and the legacy 24/5 schedule of fiat markets. LMAX’s new venue addresses this liquidity fragmentation by unifying order books. Traders can now hedge spot crypto exposure against G10 currencies continuously, eliminating the weekend gap risk that often plagues cross-asset strategies.
The initiative is a significant step towards the convergence of crypto and TradFi, signaling a maturation of the digital asset market infrastructure.
David Mercer, CEO of LMAX Group, has previously described the shift to 24/7 markets as inevitable. In late 2025, Mercer noted that as assets tokenize, the concept of market closing times would become obsolete. This launch operationalizes that thesis, positioning LMAX not just as a crypto venue, but as a modernization layer for TradFi plumbing.
Institutional Convergence
The Universal Exchange creates a single point of access for LMAX’s existing client base of banks and proprietary trading firms. By treating BTC/USD and EUR/USD as operationally identical assets within the matching engine, LMAX is forcing a re-evaluation of how prime brokers handle weekend risk and margin calls.
This consolidation follows LMAX’s aggressive expansion into the institutional stack, including the 2025 launch of perpetual futures and the integration of MetaQuotes’ Ultency engine. With volatility returning to digital asset markets, the ability to rebalance collateral across asset classes in real-time is likely to become a baseline requirement for high-frequency desks.
