Shit, MIAX is just the old BATS/Cboe technology with some local flair. There are multiple derivatives of the old Island/INET tech stack, mainly in ATSs, but the iteration Nasdaq is operating on only diverges where extreme message volume factors in.
No one is silly enough to want the abomination of design that is Pillar, but the point still stands that technical differentiation isn’t really important in the way it was 15-20yr ago.
I've never quite understood the nature of this criticism. At best I'd describe it as deeply intellectualized tribalism. But I think I'm being a little too kind.
I (in good faith) don’t understand what you don’t understand. Western Sahara is basically a colony so if you’re opposed to colonialism it isn’t super weird to be opposed to making a movie in that colony, paying taxes etc to the colonizers and so on, no?
Because resources are extracted for the profit of the colonizers and not the locals, who are being suppressed and purposefully supplanted. Seriously man, this is not really very controversial, Morocco isn’t really behaving all that nicely down there.
Tell me again how the locals are suppressed and resources stolen from on the Falklands? What are we even talking about, grass and sheep?
what you described is that rich countries can have colonies because the colonized likes it but poor ones can't. I also forgot to mention Greenland in Europe (sic).
Many people do consider those colonies. However, the Falklands/Malvinas had no native population (plot twist: the French were there first). Northern Ireland's position raises questions about Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man.
I think Hawai'i is a better example than California. Hawai'i was a constitutional monarchy, with fully developed law courts etc. California was the fringe of Mexico and the Spanish Empire, and not so well organised. I have heard Puerto Rico described as a colony many times before. But again, I would say there is a better example: American Samoa.
As for the French, like the USA, they are pretty much in denial about colonies. There were people in France who considered Algeria an integral part of France right up until the end.
All of those regions are colonies or former colonies. The main difference is that Western Sahara is being actively colonized right now whereas all of those regions were colonized 100+ years ago. Falklands were uninhabited before European settlement btw
I worked for a company that had a fairly large OpenVMS installation and had to make the transition from Alpha to Itanium. It required a considerable amount of work and the early iterations of Itanium did not provide a clear performance improvement over the final Alpha EV7z that we had been using in some GS1280s.
Going by my faulty memory, I'd say it wasn't until Tukwila that it was a clear win over Alpha EV7z. By the time Tukwila arrived, it was pretty clear that Itanium's goose was already cooked.
While that's true - it does not impute Ed's position with greater accuracy or authority. I don't know if Ed is wrong, but I get this vague sense that he is being led on by his emotions.
I am sympathetic to some of his criticisms that the enthusiasm and financial commitment has run far ahead what can be delivered. But I don't quite share his intensity over the doom and gloom. There probably will be a correction. It will probably sting. But I don't expect it to be the near wipe-out that Ed's passionate voice seems to steer towards.
You got a seat at the RegNMS table, but its serving food you don't actually want to eat. LTSE has been at this for 5+ years and its still at the bottom of the heap in terms of volume. Both MEMX and LTSE started within weeks of each other (Sep 2020), yet MEMX has like 40x(?) the volume. More recently 24X arrived in Nov 2025 and they are already doing more volume than LTSE.
You're selling a vibe that by trading through LTSE you're buying into "long term investing" or "long-term companies" with like minded investors, but the RegNMS seat is mostly orthogonal to the rest of the business. Note how little your three dually listed companies actually trade on LTSE. From what I can see those three had nearly zero action for 2025 Q4 AND 2026 Q1. Six months of nearly nothing. Why? Because the service that LTSE offers is the same as the other 16 lit venues. It doesn't matter where securities trade.
It's like a bunch of companies trying to sell water from a common fountain and pretending the dixie cup they serve it in really matters. You drink the water and throw away the cup. Slapping a sticker on it that says "Think LongTerm!" is mostly what I see. But I think people who love your messaging think something more is happening. It's why I made the analogy to ESG. It's just a vibe being pawned off on true believers.
At best I could say that the fees LTSE collects is a profit stream that feeds your promotion of better governance structures. But given the anemic flow in the venue, I have to assume its really not that much.
I think all of this comes down to an inherent contradiction in your mission. At best you might describe it as a tension. The RegNMS seat wants volume. You eat what you kill. But the other side of the business is trying to promote long term thinking and good corporate governance structures which has very little to do with trading - in fact - some of the attitudes from that side of the business probably frown on the trading. No short term trading! Only long term! But reality is - trading is trading. You either love it or you don't.
You can see that tension in your leadership team. LTSE is a small company but has two CEOs. I bet one is in NYC and the other in San Francisco. Two different cultures. Two different mindsets. Two teams pulling different ropes that aren't really related. You want them to be related. I get that. But they aren't.
My harping on the LTSE low volume might seem irrelevant but take note of the fact that there is a good chance that the SEC yanks Rule 611. I would expect that to pull your volume down even lower. If the SEC really makes that change, its going to be the hunger games for the little players and you'll go from having a seat at the table to being on the table.
But that might be for the best as you can focus on your real passion - designing better governance structures and encouraging companies to adopt them. The RegNMS seat is kind of a distraction for that.
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