Why build a new Clearinghouse

Why build a new Clearinghouse?

Fifteen years after the post-crisis clearing mandates, $400 trillion in uncleared OTC notional is still bilaterally margined. $60 trillion in annual crypto derivatives volume clears with no independent infrastructure. $1.4 trillion in initial margin is trapped in fragmented silos generating $20 billion per year in deadweight loss in a single product class.

I see the complaints about pressure on the system disrupting the current approaches, but it needs disruptions, tokenised collateral, realtime risk, uncleared products because of infrastructure and politics not need.

The clearing problem wasn’t solved after the financial crisis. It was rearranged.

CCPs were built product class by product class. Rates at LCH. Credit at ICE. Each silo works within its own scope. None of them captures the netting benefit across product classes.

The Duffie-Zhu fragmentation problem wasn’t resolved, just finalised a whitepaper on this with the team.

Crypto derivatives came along and skipped the problem entirely. No independent clearing. Exchange-level insurance funds with no institutional credibility. ADL as the failure mode of last resort. A $60 trillion market with a 2008-era risk structure. All to avoid regulation for retail access to perps?!!

The constraint is not regulatory will. It’s infrastructure. Infrastructure that holds no net risk and clears at the portfolio level across asset classes. Infrastructure that doesen’t require upfront tech co-ordination of dozens of businesses and contributions of dead capital to a default fund before a trade.

There is a better way and we are building it.

This first appeared on LinkedIn on 9 March 2026. If you want to comment or discuss, that’s the place.