RQD Clearing has secured a $74 million minority growth investment led by Bain Capital Tech Opportunities, with participation from ABN AMRO Clearing Bank and Nyca Partners. The technology-focused clearing and custody services firm will use the funds to expand operations across North America, Asia, and the Middle East, whilst enhancing its digital assets and tokenisation capabilities. RQD provides services for broker-dealers, registered investment advisers, and foreign financial institutions accessing US markets. The company's proprietary platform has processed over 543 million ledger transactions and cleared approximately 515 million equity transactions, representing nearly $2 trillion in notional value year to date. Unlike competitors using legacy systems, RQD was built as a technology-first clearing firm, offering 24x5 access to US equity markets and real-time data visibility for clients.

RQD* Clearing secures $74 million Strategic growth investment led by Bain Capital. Investment will accelerate leading clearing and custody firm's continued scaling, expansion of its product offering and entry into new global markets NEW YORK & BOSTON - August 27, 2026 - RQD* Clearing ("RQD*" or the "Company"), a technology driven clearing and custody firm providing the infrastructure that broker-dealers, RIAs and foreign financial institutions around the world need to access U.S. markets, today announced a $74 million minority growth investment led by Bain Capital Tech Opportunities ("Bain Capital"), with participation from ABN AMRO Clearing Bank and Nyca Partners. The investment will support RQD*'s continued expansion across North America, Asia and the Middle East, accelerate investment in its technology and product capabilities, including digital assets and tokenization, strengthen its role as a custody infrastructure layer for digital assets and expand the Company's ability to serve financial institutions seeking modern, scalable access to U.S. markets. Built as a clearing firm from the ground up rather than as a technology layer on top of legacy or licensed infrastructure, RQD* operates a proprietary platform which provides clients with real-time visibility into their data. This enables clients to more efficiently launch and scale products without relying on the delayed files, fragmented systems and manual processes that continue to characterize the post-trade ecosystem. RQD* combines technology architecture with deep expertise across the clearing and market structure landscape. The result is infrastructure designed to support sophisticated institutional activity and the rapidly evolving needs of digital-first financial businesses. RQD*'s year to date volumes demonstrate that scale: the firm processed more than 543 million ledger transactions and cleared approximately 515 million equity transactions, representing 69.5 billion shares, nearly $2 trillion in notional value and approximately 2.43% of the NMS equities market. During the same period, RQD* cleared nearly 64.8 million options contracts, representing $120.7 billion in premium and $3.93 trillion in notional value - approximately 0.63% of the options market. With the investment, Bain Capital joins RQD*'s investor group, which includes ABN AMRO Clearing Bank, Nyca Partners, Gentree Fund and Belvedere Strategic Capital. The investment reinforces the Company's emergence as the institutional-grade alternative to both legacy clearing platforms and newer brokerage infrastructure providers. "This investment marks a significant milestone for RQD*, validating the platform we have built and the enormous opportunity ahead. Bain Capital brings deep financial technology expertise, operating capabilities and a global network, making them the ideal partner for our next phase of growth," said Michael Sanocki, CEO of RQD* Clearing. "Financial institutions should not have to choose between the technology and agility of a fintech and the market-structure expertise, risk management and infrastructure of an institutional clearing firm. We built RQD* to deliver both, and Bain Capital's investment will help us accelerate that mission while continuing to deliver the flexibility and service our clients expect." RQD*'s platform is purpose-built for the way today's investing businesses operate - real-time, technology-driven and increasingly global. Because RQD* owns and operates its proprietary clearing infrastructure, the Company provides clients with a unified view across clearing, custody and risk, supported by a dynamic, real-time front-end portal that delivers operational visibility and risk-management capabilities. The platform supports 24x5 access to U.S. equity markets through extended-hours trading and can adapt rapidly to new products and operating models. Designed to scale alongside its clients, RQD* delivers sustainable, flexible solutions across asset classes, including equities, options at all levels, ETFs and mutual funds. "Michael and RQD*'s experienced team of industry experts have done an impressive job building the Company into a highly differentiated clearing and custody business. As capital markets become more global, digital and continuous, RQD* provides the mission-critical infrastructure financial institutions and fintech platforms need to keep pace" said Michael Grandfield, Partner at Bain Capital Tech Opportunities. "RQD* has demonstrated that its platform can support sophisticated clients at meaningful scale while maintaining the flexibility and responsiveness financial institutions increasingly demand. We look forward to partnering with the team as the Company expands its capabilities and global reach." Demand for access to U.S. markets continues to grow globally as broker-dealers, fintechs and foreign financial institutions seek to offer broader products, longer trading hours and more sophisticated investment capabilities. At the same time, much of the clearing infrastructure underpinning those businesses was designed decades before real-time APIs, extended-hours trading and globally distributed financial platforms. RQD* was built specifically for that environment. About RQD* Clearing RQD* is a clearing and custody firm providing the infrastructure broker-dealers, RIAs and foreign financial institutions need to access U.S. markets. Built on proprietary technology, RQD* gives clients real-time visibility into their business and the flexibility to launch, scale and adapt offerings and platforms with speed and confidence. The firm combines transparent, growth-aligned economics with premium service and hands-on expertise across clearing, market structure, trading, technology and operations. To learn more, visit rqdclearing.com. About Bain Capital Founded in 1984, Bain Capital is one of the world's leading private investment firms. RQD* Clearing, LLC is committed to creating lasting impact for its investors, portfolio companies, and the communities in which RQD* Clearing, LLC live. As a private partnership, RQD* Clearing, LLC lead with conviction and a culture of collaboration, advantages that enable RQD* Clearing, LLC to innovate investment approaches, unlock opportunities, and create exceptional outcomes. Its global platform invests across five focus areas: Private Equity, Growth & Venture, Capital Solutions, Credit, and Real Assets. RQD* Clearing, LLC has 24 offices on four continents, more than 1,950 employees, and approximately $225 billion in assets under management. Bain Capital's Tech Opportunities business (baincapitaltechopportunities.com) aims to help growing technology companies reach their full potential. RQD* Clearing, LLC focus on companies in large, growing end markets with innovative or disruptive technology where RQD* Clearing, LLC believe RQD* Clearing, LLC can support transformational growth. Its dedicated, tenured team has deep experience supporting growing technology businesses - bringing together differentiated backgrounds in private and public equity investing as well as technology operating roles. RQD* Clearing, LLC invest behind fundamental long-term tailwinds as technology penetrates across industries, creating a large and growing number of investment opportunities. To learn more, visit www.baincapital.com. Follow @BainCapital on LinkedIn and X (Twitter).

CARF covers just 14% of crypto's taxable activity as the U.S. weighs the Clarity Act. By Nora Bennett At least $457 billion in onchain crypto activity qualified as taxable in 2025, and the global reporting standard built to track it reached only a fraction of that. Chainalysis puts the coverage of the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework at roughly 14% of the total, a gap that leaves tax authorities blind to the large majority of taxable transactions even as the framework moves toward wider adoption. The number lands at a moment when the infrastructure around digital assets is maturing far faster than the rules meant to govern it. Wall Street is wiring itself for tokenized markets, prime brokers are extending crypto plumbing into traditional equities, and Washington is debating a market-structure bill that one former defense official now frames in national-security terms. The reporting layer, by contrast, is still catching up to where the money already is. $457 billion onchain, 14% reported. Chainalysis's estimate covers activity that would generate a tax obligation somewhere: disposals, swaps, income events and the rest of the onchain footprint that regulators expect to see declared. CARF, adopted by the OECD to give jurisdictions a common language for exchanging crypto tax data, is designed to automate that visibility across borders. Its early reach of about 14% shows how much of the market still sits outside any coordinated reporting regime, whether because a jurisdiction hasn't implemented the standard or because the activity runs through channels CARF doesn't yet capture. The mismatch matters for how the next wave of regulation gets written. A market that produces close to half a trillion dollars in taxable events every year is no longer a niche compliance problem, and the distance between that figure and what tax agencies can actually observe is the kind of gap that invites tighter rules rather than lighter ones. RQD* raises $74 million for tokenized-market plumbing. The clearing and custody firm RQD* Clearing raised $74 million in a round led by Bain Capital, with the proceeds earmarked for expanding its digital asset and tokenization infrastructure. The company operates in the unglamorous middle of the market - clearing, settlement, custody - the part that has to work before tokenized securities can trade at institutional scale. That's the tell in this cluster. The capital is flowing not into another exchange or token, but into the back-office machinery that lets traditional finance handle tokenized assets the way it handles stocks and bonds today. Bain leading the round signals that established investors expect tokenization to become a mainstream settlement problem worth solving now, ahead of the regulatory clarity that would formalize it. Ripple Prime opens a Delta One desk. Ripple Prime launched a Delta One business this week, letting institutional clients trade total return swaps tied to U.S.-listed equities, indexes and digital assets through its multi-asset prime brokerage. The service, live for hedge fund and institutional clients, allows cross-margined exposure across those markets from a single platform - a structure that lets a crypto-native prime broker offer synthetic access to traditional equities without clients touching the underlying shares. It's a notable direction of travel: a firm built around digital assets moving into the derivatives plumbing of conventional stock markets, rather than the other way around. WalletInvestor's model leans constructive on XRP over a one-year horizon, though the Ripple-branded prime brokerage and the token trade on separate logic; the desk's expansion is a business development for the wider Ripple ecosystem, not a mechanical driver of the asset's price. The regulatory question underneath it is whether services blending equity derivatives and digital assets fall cleanly under existing securities rules or land in the same undefined territory the Clarity Act aims to settle. A former defense secretary's case for the Clarity Act. The Clarity Act, the U.S. market-structure bill that would divide oversight of digital assets between regulators and define when a token is a security, picked up an unusual advocate. A former U.S. Secretary of Defense argued that passing it is a national-security imperative, framing clear domestic rules as a way to keep digital-asset activity anchored in the United States rather than pushed offshore into jurisdictions Washington can't oversee. That argument, made in the official's own words rather than as settled policy, reframes a debate that has mostly turned on investor protection and jurisdictional turf. The counterweight, also raised in the discussion around the bill, is that codifying the rules could entrench the largest incumbents by handing them a compliance moat smaller firms can't match. Both are live claims about a bill that has not become law, and the security framing is one advocate's read, not a consensus position. Prices firmed while the losses piled up. The market backdrop was mildly positive as this played out. Total crypto market capitalization rose 1.36% over 24 hours to $2.68 trillion on Thursday, August 27, helped by ETF inflows and steadier sentiment, though the gains spread unevenly across major assets. Running underneath the price action is a security problem that keeps growing. CoinGecko tallped $3.63 billion in crypto losses from breaches over the stretch from January 2025 through mid-2026, a figure that tracks the same theme as the tax-reporting gap: the market's scale is outrunning the systems meant to secure and account for it. Every one of those stolen dollars is also, in most jurisdictions, a taxable and reportable event that the current framework struggles to see. For all the institutional buildout - the clearing rounds, the prime-brokerage desks, the market-structure bill - the reporting standard meant to bring order to it still touches only about one in seven taxable dollars onchain. Whether the Clarity Act narrows that gap or simply redraws the map around it is the question the next round of rulemaking will have to answer. Nora Bennett Senior markets editor, WalletInvestor Nora leads WalletInvestor's markets desk, covering macro data, central banks and the forces moving global equities and rates.