LMAX Group and Standard Chartered execute first live digital asset prime brokerage trades
LMAX Group said it executed the first digital asset prime brokerage trades with Standard Chartered, a pilot covering Spot Bitcoin (XBT/USD) and Ether (XET/USD) with T+1 settlement through the bank's UK branch. Trades ran on LMAX Digital, with Standard Chartered Prime Brokerage acting as credit intermediary.
View original sourceStructure of the pilot trades
Announced in London on 1 July 2026, the transactions are described by LMAX Group as its first digital asset prime brokerage trades with Standard Chartered and as the bank's first digital asset credit intermediation trades executed through a digital asset prime brokerage model. The instruments were Spot Bitcoin (XBT/USD) and Ether (XET/USD), settled T+1 through Standard Chartered's UK branch. Execution took place on LMAX Digital, the group's regulated institutional digital asset venue. Standard Chartered Prime Brokerage acted as credit intermediary between counterparties, linking LMAX Group's execution and post-trade environment with settlement completed through Standard Chartered's digital asset custody platform in the DIFC. Both firms present the arrangement as an integrated execution-and-intermediation workflow; the announcement is the companies' own account and does not include independent verification.
Controls tested and stated next steps
According to the announcement, the pilot validated controls across credit, margin, risk management, trade booking, settlement and reporting, and combined LMAX Group's matching technology with the bank's client connectivity and electronic messaging, alongside trade matching and what the firms call early validation of netting approaches. The companies frame the exercise as informing a future roadmap for institutional digital asset credit intermediation under a prime brokerage structure, with the two collaborating on scalable market infrastructure models. No commercial launch date, client onboarding timetable or scope beyond the pilot was disclosed. The announcement also does not state trade volumes, notional values or the identity of the counterparties involved.
What the companies said
David Mercer, CEO of LMAX Group, said: "The lack of credit counterparties with robust balance sheets on the scale that we see in traditional finance has been a critical missing mechanism in the digital asset market to date." He described the trades as showing how bank-grade balance sheet strength and risk management can be combined with market infrastructure. Alison Higgins, Head of Prime Services at Standard Chartered, said: "This pilot is part of our broader strategy to build a comprehensive institutional-grade digital asset platform, spanning custody, trading and prime brokerage." The bank's characterisation of the pilot as serving accelerating client demand is a company statement rather than a reported measure of that demand.
Position within Standard Chartered's digital asset work
LMAX Group states that Standard Chartered is one of the first Global Systemically Important Banks to test a digital asset prime brokerage model within established risk, compliance and market infrastructure frameworks, building on a digital asset trading capability the bank launched in 2025. The announcement situates the pilot within broader group activity: digital asset custody and trading through the Corporate and Investment Bank, SC Ventures-backed Zodia Markets, tokenisation through Libeara and white-label custody infrastructure through Zodia Solutions. These are separate offerings by separate entities and are not described as part of the pilot trades themselves.
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