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Standard Chartered and LMAX Group Execute First Live Digital Asset Prime Brokerage Trades

Standard Chartered has executed its first digital asset prime brokerage trades with LMAX Group, a milestone in the build-out of institutional market infrastructure for crypto.

With this move, the bank became one of the first Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs) to test a prime brokerage model for digital assets inside established risk, compliance and market frameworks.

The pilot covered spot Bitcoin (XBT/USD) with T+1 settlement through Standard Chartered’s UK branch. These were the bank’s first digital asset credit intermediation trades under a prime brokerage structure.

The transactions ran on LMAX Digital, LMAX Group’s regulated institutional venue, with Standard Chartered Prime Brokerage acting as the credit intermediary between counterparties. Settlement completed through the bank’s digital asset custody platform in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).

Prime brokerage has underpinned equities and foreign exchange for decades, giving institutions a single counterparty for credit, execution and settlement. Crypto has lacked that layer. As capital shifts away from direct exchange access, the gap has widened: in 2025, flows through prime brokers and OTC desks grew at more than 10 times the rate of flows into exchanges.

A digital asset prime brokerage at scale needs a counterparty with the governance, risk discipline and credit capacity to stand behind institutional trades. Most global banks have partnered with crypto-native firms or stayed on the sidelines.

Standard Chartered said their approach differs: the bank is stepping in as credit intermediary on its own balance sheet, with LMAX Group supplying the regulated execution infrastructure beneath it.

In short, a bank is bringing its own balance sheet to digital assets rather than renting someone else’s.

What the Standard Chartered pilot validated

The transactions confirmed core controls across credit, margin, risk management, trade booking, settlement and reporting, and showed the model operating inside existing regulatory frameworks.

The test brought together LMAX Group’s execution and matching technology with the bank’s client connectivity, electronic messaging, trade matching and an early validation of netting approaches. It offered a view into how traditional and digital asset infrastructure can operate as one workflow.

The two firms describe the pilot as a step toward a roadmap for scalable, institutional-grade market infrastructure.

It builds on the digital asset trading capability Standard Chartered launched in 2025.

“This pilot is part of our broader strategy to build a comprehensive institutional-grade digital asset platform, spanning custody, trading and prime brokerage,” said Alison Higgins, Head of Prime Services at Standard Chartered. “As demand accelerates, we are helping our Prime Brokerage clients capture new opportunities backed by the risk management, controls and balance sheet strength they expect from a G-SIB.”

David Mercer, CEO of LMAX Group, framed the trade as a fix for a structural gap. “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 said. “This is a great example of the impending convergence of TradFi and digital assets to a cross-asset capital markets future.”

This post Standard Chartered and LMAX Group Execute First Live Digital Asset Prime Brokerage Trades first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman .

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A search is underway for a missing aircrewmember after a U.S. Navy MH-60S Seahawk helicopter assigned to the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) “conducted an emergency water landing in the Arabian Sea,” the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet stated in a post on X . “There is no indication the emergency was caused by hostile action.”

“Three of the helicopter’s four crew members have been recovered and are in stable condition aboard George H. W. Bush,” 5th Fleet added. “U.S. Navy assets in the region are currently searching for other aircrewmen still missing. The cause of the incident is under investigation.”

The incident took place at 3:30 a.m. EDT, 5th Fleet stated.

On July 1 at 3:30 a.m. ET, the aircrew of an MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter assigned to USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) conducted an emergency water landing in the Arabian Sea. There is no indication the emergency was caused by hostile action. Three of the helicopter’s four crew…

— U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/U.S. 5th Fleet (@US5thFleet) July 1, 2026

The mishap occurred amid tense ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and Iran to end the war. This marks the second time in the past few weeks that a U.S.military helicopter aircrew had to be rescued after a crash in the region.

The crew of a U.S. Army AH-64 Apache were rescued from the Gulf of Oman overnight June 9 by a Corsair drone boat. President Donald Trump said Iranian forces downed the attack helicopter .

This is a developing story.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The post U.S. Navy MH-60S Seahawk Goes Down In Arabian Sea appeared first on TWZ .

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BMW looks to have beaten Tesla to the punch with X-inspired design cues.

The daytime running lights of the new X5 are different from those of all other BMWs.

In the new X5, the DRLs double as turn signals, making them look even more striking.

The world has an all-new BMW X5 , and it has certainly got people talking. This is the third all-new model launched by BMW as part of its current Neue Klasse “era”, following the second-generation iX3 and the new i3 electric sedan . Its design is mostly familiar, though it carries some very intriguing daytime running lights that seem inspired by the logo of one of Elon Musk’s companies.

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Where the new iX3 and i3 use relatively simple angled slashes for their DRLs, the X5 opts for X-shaped units that look virtually identical to the X logo of the platform formerly known as Twitter. Perhaps BMW’s designers spent a little too much time on social media while penning the new SUV.

Read: 2027 BMW X5 Drops Door Handles For Wings, Adds A 435-Mile Electric iX5

The resemblance runs deeper than the overall X shape. Just like the logo used by X, the DRLs on the left of the new iX5 include a large void in the line running from left to right, and the angle looks almost identical too. Once you see it, you won’t be able to unsee it.

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BMW

X

The DRLs on the right side of the X5 are the same, although they’re obviously mirrored and flipped the other way. Like many new cars, the DRLs also double as the turn signals, so drivers will also have flashing Xs whenever they’re making a turn or using the hazard lights.

Why BMW went this route rather than copying the simpler lights used by the iX3 and i3 is hard to pin down, though the company likely wanted to set the X5 apart from those two models and give its biggest new SUV a signature all its own. Was this the best solution to that problem? We’re not so sure, but BMW did at least beat Elon Musk to the punch here. If he spots these DRLs on the road, he may well wonder why Tesla didn’t think of stamping its own logo into a set of headlights first.

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The first dinosaur found in Antarctica belonged to a group that included the largest animals ever to walk the planet, a new study finds.

A backbone from the 82 million-year-old giant was discovered more than 40 years ago, but at the time, researchers assumed it came from an ancient marine reptile. Now a new study, published June 29 in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica , has revealed that it was actually a titanosaur — the group of long-necked sauropods that included the largest land animals on record.

"At first glance this appears to be an unremarkable fossil, but it holds an important place in the history of Antarctic exploration as the first dinosaur fossil found on the continent," study first author Paul Barrett , a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, said in a statement .

While this fossil now holds the record for the first dinosaur fossil found in Antarctica, other dinosaur fossils were identified on the continent after its discovery, so it's not the only known Antarctic dinosaur. In fact, researchers have identified a variety of dinosaurs on Antarctica, with another sauropod fossil identified as a titanosaur in 2011.

The newly identified dinosaur was around 20 to 23 feet (6 to 7 meters) long. That's very small compared with the largest-known titanosaurs, which could grow up to 123 feet (37.5 m) long. However, as the fossil is just a fragment of a vertebra, researchers are unable to narrow down which species the Antarctic titanosaur belonged to, and it's possible that the individual was only a juvenile when it died.

Mike Thomson, a British Antarctic Survey geologist, found the fossil during an expedition to James Ross Island in 1985. The island, which has been the site of multiple dinosaur discoveries, is located off the northeastern Antarctic Peninsula, south of the 600-mile-wide (965 kilometers) Drake Passage that separates South America from Antarctica.

Antarctica is well known for its icy landscapes, but when titanosaurs roamed Earth, the continent was still attached to South America and full of temperate forests. Antarctica's dinosaurs were so far south that they would have lived in constant twilight during the winter months, according to a news article published by the Natural History Museum.

The authors of the new study identified the dinosaur using high-resolution CT scans, which enabled them to look inside the fossil. Dating back to the Cretaceous period (143 million to 66 million years ago), the titanosaur lived in the last age of the non-avian dinosaurs, before an enormous asteroid hit what is now Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago and wiped them out.

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The Antarctic titanosaur helps researchers better understand how dinosaurs spread across Earth's southern continents, which at the time were combined into a supercontinent called Gondwana. The presence of titanosaurs on Antarctica suggests that they may have used Antarctica to travel from what is now South America to New Zealand.

Other dinosaurs identified on Antarctica include small herbivores, armored ankylosaurs and bipedal predators like Imperobator , which would have shared the forests with the newly identified titanosaur. While researchers are beginning to piece together Antarctica's ancient ecosystems, they still have a lot to learn about the dinosaurs that lived there.

"There are likely many more dinosaurs to be discovered on the continent," Barrett said. "As climate change causes ice to retreat we may indeed find further evidence of this past biodiversity."

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In 2025, Ofek Riemer, Daniel Wajner, and Ehud Eiran wrote, “Populists vs. Spies in Israel and Beyond,” where they argued that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s relationship with Israel’s intelligence agencies could have grave consequences for Israel’s democracy. A year later, we asked them to revisit their arguments.Image: U.S. Department of State via Wikimedia Commons In your 2025 article, you argued that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s clashes with Israel’s internal intelligence agency, Shin Bet, is a hallmark tactic of populist leaders and could have grave long-term consequences for Israel’s liberal democracy. A year later, what is the dynamic like between Netanyahu and the intelligence

The post From Shin Bet to Mossad, Netanyahu Reshapes Israeli Intelligence appeared first on War on the Rocks .

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After claiming Steam's fees cost Valve some of the biggest games around, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney doubled down, insisting that "lower fees and more openness might increase Steam profit." Sweeney pointed to companies "like Epic, Riot, and MiHoYo" as notable Steam skippers, and was swiftly reminded that Genshin Impact maker MiHoYo, now more commonly known by its HoYoverse or Cognosphere arms, has a growing presence on Steam.

A recent Twitter post from Sweeney wades into discussion of his comments regarding Steam. He responded to a user who sarcastically said "it is Steam's fault that Epic won't put their game on there apparently."

In full, Sweeney replied, "Here’s what’s happening economically: Steam charges such high fees that developers with strong brands and big enough audiences, like Epic, Riot, and MiHoYo find it more profitable to go it alone. Ironically, lower fees and more openness might increase Steam profit."

This quickly earned Sweeney a Twitter community note which clarifies that MiHoYo has had games on Steam since the 2021 relaunch of Honkai Impact 3rd , and, just weeks ago, released its action RPG Zenless Zone Zero on Steam to great success and reviews.

Additionally, new files spotted in the HoYoverse launcher suggest a Steam version of Genshin Impact may be on the way. However, this could also be a consequence of shared code that's not indicative of future changes.

(Image credit: HoYoverse) Zenless Zone Zero came to Steam alongside the release of its big 3.0 update, a major season-like milestone. Genshin Impact is six weeks away from a similar milestone, update 7.0, which would be a tidy anchor for a Steam release. Speculation whirls that HoYoverse will push to reach more players with the final known chapter of Genshin's current regional storyline, which will begin with the release of the Snezhnaya area in update 7.0, perhaps by entreating the Steam audience.

There are a few other factors in the mix here. Zenless Zone Zero is the smallest of the modern HoYoverse games, trailing Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail in virtually all known metrics. A relevant counterpoint here is the game's presence on PC and PlayStation, with Sony showering partner awards on ZZZ amid chart-topping results, making mobile-only comparisons less useful. Zenless' seemingly much smaller audience may have made it a more appealing test for a Steam version. Importantly, Zenless also allowed account linking, letting existing players move to the Steam ecosystem and bring their account and potential purchases with them.

Sweeney doesn't specify it, but Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail are available on the Epic Games Store, which takes a smaller cut of sales than Steam. HoYoverse made a big show of its Epic partnership back in 2021, and it's unclear what terms Epic offered the company.

The latest Epic Games Store annual report confirms that fellow gacha RPG Wuthering Waves, Honkai: Star Rail, and Genshin Impact are, in that order, all among the store's top five "Mythic" PC games. Zenless Zone Zero, meanwhile, is in Epic's "Legendary" game tier alongside Grand Theft Auto 5, Infinity Nikki (another gacha game), Dead by Daylight, and EA Sports FC 26 (a gacha game in disguise).

By Sweeney's own logic of fees versus reach, revenue split alone may not explain HoYoverse's decision to skip Steam until recently. The Epic Games Store only attracts a small portion of the PC audience, and only 16 to 18% of users brought in by free games actually buy games on the store afterward, so with the Epic partnership, HoYo surely would've done some math on what it stood to gain when you put additional players on the scale with migrating players and third-party fees.

"My goal on PC isn't to topple Steam": Epic Games Store boss says beating Valve isn't the plan – just getting "enough market share on PC that you have to be here no matter what."