Author: Chain Wire

Sydney, Australia, September 9th, 2026, FinanceWire

IC Markets Australia is proud to announce it has been named the winner of the People’s Choice Forex Broker Innovation Award in the 2026 Finder Innovation Awards program.

The Finder Innovation Awards recognise products, services and brands that are delivering meaningful innovation for Australian consumers. Unlike many industry awards, the Finder Awards are not pay-to-play, providing an independent endorsement based on product merit and customer value.

The People’s Choice Forex Broker Innovation Award highlights IC Markets Australia’s ongoing commitment to enhancing the trading experience for Australian clients through technology, platform innovation and client-focused solutions.

IC Markets Australia provides traders with access to advanced trading platforms, competitive pricing and a trading environment designed to support a wide range of trading styles and experience levels. The award recognises the company’s focus on continuously improving its offering to meet the evolving needs of Australian traders.

“We’re honoured to receive the People’s Choice Forex Broker Innovation Award from Finder,” said Peter Tardent, Managing Director of IC Markets Australia. “Innovation is central to everything we do, from investing in trading technology and platform enhancements to improving the overall client experience. Receiving recognition from a trusted Australian comparison platform reinforces our commitment to delivering value for our clients.”

According to Finder, consumer trust in independent awards remains strong, with 79% of Australians placing greater trust in awards that are not paid for. As a respected Australian comparison platform, Finder’s recognition provides valuable third-party validation for brands that demonstrate excellence and innovation.

This latest award adds to a growing list of industry recognitions received by IC Markets Australia and reflects the company’s continued focus on providing Australian traders with access to world-class trading technology, transparent pricing and exceptional service.

About IC Markets Australia

IC Markets Australia is a leading online trading provider offering access to global financial markets through advanced trading platforms. Committed to delivering innovative technology, competitive pricing and a high-quality trading experience, IC Markets Australia supports traders across a broad range of markets and trading styles.

Contact

Bao Huynh
IC Markets
b.huynh@icmarkets.com.au
0479107400

Lisbon, Portugal, September 9th, 2026, FinanceWire

Ekiden, the first order book-based derivatives exchange, brings institutional-grade execution, private trading workflows, and on-chain settlement to the Canton ecosystem. 

The launch adds a professional execution layer to Canton’s growing financial ecosystem, enabling market participants to trade and settle derivatives on-chain using infrastructure designed around the requirements of institutional markets. 

Ekiden is built for professional trading firms, market makers, funds, banks, and institutional trading desks that require execution workflows closer to traditional capital markets than to retail-focused decentralized finance venues. 

The platform combines a central limit order book, or CLOB, with request-for-quote execution, PropAMM integration, a professional trading terminal, and API connectivity for market makers, algorithmic trading platforms, aggregators, exchanges, and funds. 

Ekiden also provides a streamlined entry point into the Canton ecosystem, allowing professional market participants to onboard, connect through its API, and begin trading without having to build their own Canton-native infrastructure.

Canton Network provides a privacy-enabled and interoperable environment for regulated financial markets, allowing institutions to coordinate transactions without making commercially sensitive information publicly visible. Ekiden extends that environment into derivatives trading by bringing execution, liquidity, and settlement together within a single venue. 

“Ekiden’s mainnet is a notable addition to Canton’s application layer, bringing order book execution, privacy, and settlement into a single venue designed for professional trading,” said Viv Diwakar, Head of the Canton Foundation. “Launches like this act as a catalyst as the network broadens its offerings in on-chain derivatives, and we look forward to seeing a range of venues and participants contribute to that growth over time.”

According to a 2026 Coinbase and EY survey, 73% of institutional decision-makers plan to increase their digital asset allocations. Supporting this growth requires reliable execution, liquidity, price discovery, privacy, and infrastructure capable of handling institutional order flow.

“Tokenization alone does not create institutional markets,” said Vitali Dervoed, founder and CEO of Ekiden. “For tokenized assets to trade at scale, institutions need execution quality, liquidity, privacy, and workflows that reflect how professional trading actually works. Canton provides the institutional environment. We add the trading infrastructure layer for on-chain derivatives.” 

Existing on-chain trading venues have largely developed around retail participation, passive liquidity pools, and public execution environments. Professional trading firms have different requirements, including deterministic execution, low-latency API access, configurable privacy, and the ability to manage positions and capital movements without exposing commercially sensitive information to the wider market. 

Ekiden’s architecture is intended to address these requirements while preserving the operational benefits of on-chain settlement. The platform allows the lifecycle of a derivatives transaction from price discovery and execution through to settlement to take place within Canton’s privacy-enabled environment. 

During its first week on the Canton testnet, Ekiden recorded 1,502 active users, more than 72,000 trades, and approximately $8.9 million in trading volume. The company is working with 11 integration partners and has integrated 12 market makers ahead of its expansion on mainnet. 

Initial liquidity is supported by market makers, including Keyrock, Kappa Lab, and Flowdesk. Ekiden plans to add further liquidity providers, onboard more institutional participants, and expand the range of derivatives available through the platform. 

In May 2026, Ekiden raised $2 million in seed financing to develop institutional-grade infrastructure for on-chain derivatives. The round included investors and strategic participants connected to GSR, Flowdesk, Pyth, Aptos, G20, DCF God, Curiosity Capital, and Keyrock. 

The mainnet launch strengthens Canton Network’s position as infrastructure for institutional digital markets by adding a dedicated venue for derivatives execution and settlement. It also broadens the range of financial activity that can take place across the network while maintaining the privacy and workflow controls required by professional market participants.

About Ekiden

Ekiden operates an institutional derivatives exchange on Canton Network, combining central limit order book and request-for-quote execution with on-chain settlement, privacy controls, and institutional custody workflows. The platform is live and open to proprietary trading firms, funds, market makers, and bank trading desks.

Get started

Onboarding information and API documentation are available at ekiden.fi

Contact

Sofia Bobrik
TechWaves PR
ceo@techwavespr.com

Lisbon, Portugal, September 9th, 2026, FinanceWire

Ekiden, the first order book-based derivatives exchange, brings institutional-grade execution, private trading workflows, and on-chain settlement to the Canton ecosystem. 

The launch adds a professional execution layer to Canton’s growing financial ecosystem, enabling market participants to trade and settle derivatives on-chain using infrastructure designed around the requirements of institutional markets. 

Ekiden is built for professional trading firms, market makers, funds, banks, and institutional trading desks that require execution workflows closer to traditional capital markets than to retail-focused decentralized finance venues. 

The platform combines a central limit order book, or CLOB, with request-for-quote execution, PropAMM integration, a professional trading terminal, and API connectivity for market makers, algorithmic trading platforms, aggregators, exchanges, and funds. 

Ekiden also provides a streamlined entry point into the Canton ecosystem, allowing professional market participants to onboard, connect through its API, and begin trading without having to build their own Canton-native infrastructure.

Canton Network provides a privacy-enabled and interoperable environment for regulated financial markets, allowing institutions to coordinate transactions without making commercially sensitive information publicly visible. Ekiden extends that environment into derivatives trading by bringing execution, liquidity, and settlement together within a single venue. 

“Ekiden’s mainnet is a notable addition to Canton’s application layer, bringing order book execution, privacy, and settlement into a single venue designed for professional trading,” said Viv Diwakar, Head of the Canton Foundation. “Launches like this act as a catalyst as the network broadens its offerings in on-chain derivatives, and we look forward to seeing a range of venues and participants contribute to that growth over time.”

According to a 2026 Coinbase and EY survey, 73% of institutional decision-makers plan to increase their digital asset allocations. Supporting this growth requires reliable execution, liquidity, price discovery, privacy, and infrastructure capable of handling institutional order flow.

“Tokenization alone does not create institutional markets,” said Vitali Dervoed, founder and CEO of Ekiden. “For tokenized assets to trade at scale, institutions need execution quality, liquidity, privacy, and workflows that reflect how professional trading actually works. Canton provides the institutional environment. We add the trading infrastructure layer for on-chain derivatives.” 

Existing on-chain trading venues have largely developed around retail participation, passive liquidity pools, and public execution environments. Professional trading firms have different requirements, including deterministic execution, low-latency API access, configurable privacy, and the ability to manage positions and capital movements without exposing commercially sensitive information to the wider market. 

Ekiden’s architecture is intended to address these requirements while preserving the operational benefits of on-chain settlement. The platform allows the lifecycle of a derivatives transaction from price discovery and execution through to settlement to take place within Canton’s privacy-enabled environment. 

During its first week on the Canton testnet, Ekiden recorded 1,502 active users, more than 72,000 trades, and approximately $8.9 million in trading volume. The company is working with 11 integration partners and has integrated 12 market makers ahead of its expansion on mainnet. 

Initial liquidity is supported by market makers, including Keyrock, Kappa Lab, and Flowdesk. Ekiden plans to add further liquidity providers, onboard more institutional participants, and expand the range of derivatives available through the platform. 

In May 2026, Ekiden raised $2 million in seed financing to develop institutional-grade infrastructure for on-chain derivatives. The round included investors and strategic participants connected to GSR, Flowdesk, Pyth, Aptos, G20, DCF God, Curiosity Capital, and Keyrock. 

The mainnet launch strengthens Canton Network’s position as infrastructure for institutional digital markets by adding a dedicated venue for derivatives execution and settlement. It also broadens the range of financial activity that can take place across the network while maintaining the privacy and workflow controls required by professional market participants.

About Ekiden

Ekiden operates an institutional derivatives exchange on Canton Network, combining central limit order book and request-for-quote execution with on-chain settlement, privacy controls, and institutional custody workflows. The platform is live and open to proprietary trading firms, funds, market makers, and bank trading desks.

Get started

Onboarding information and API documentation are available at ekiden.fi

Contact

Sofia Bobrik
TechWaves PR
ceo@techwavespr.com

Singapore, Singapore, September 9th, 2026, FinanceWire

Tradition today announced a strategic partnership with Affin Moneybrokers Sdn. Bhd., one of Malaysia’s leading interbank money brokers, under which Tradition will provide market data infrastructure, pricing technology and distribution capabilities to support Affin’s continued growth in the Malaysian financial markets.

The partnership brings together Tradition’s global expertise in market data, pricing technologies and information distribution with AFFIN Moneybrokers’ established position in Malaysia’s wholesale financial markets. Through the collaboration, Tradition will provide pricing tools, data management capabilities and publication services designed to enhance the creation, management and distribution of market data across foreign exchange, money markets, rates and fixed income products. 

Affin Moneybrokers is the growing brokerage business and part of the Affin Group and plays an important role in Malaysia’s interbank Foreign Exchange, OTC Derivative, Fixed Income and Money Markets, acting as an intermediary between financial institutions supporting price transparency and market efficiency. 

The partnership reflects growing demand across Asia for locally sourced, trusted market data and pricing information. By combining AFFIN’s market expertise with Tradition’s technology, data engineering and distribution capabilities, the two firms aim to further strengthen the availability and quality of Malaysian market data for domestic and international market participants. 

www.traditionasia.com

www.affingroup.com/en/affin-moneybrokers 

Contact

James Alasdair Ient
data.contracting@traditionasia.com

MINNEAPOLIS, MN, September 8th, 2026, FinanceWire

A material that turns your own movement into medicine has just landed a corporate home. PetVivo Holdings (OTCQX: PETV), a veterinary biotech and biomedical device company focused on treating osteoarthritis in dogs and horses, has acquired PiezoBioMembrane (PBM) — a startup built around a biodegradable implant that generates electricity from the everyday force of a joint in motion, and uses that charge to help regrow cartilage from the inside out. The material is the invention of Thanh Nguyen, a professor of mechanical engineering in UConn’s College of Engineering, who founded PBM in 2021 to advance new implementation methods for his work with piezoelectric materials — substances that convert mechanical force into electrical energy. These materials are typically ceramics: hard, brittle, and poorly suited for medical use. But Nguyen’s lab developed new forms that are so , flexible, and biodegradable, breaking down naturally within the body over time. wound healing, The materials have already shown strong potential across a range of medical applications, including tissue regeneration, implanted force sensors, and targeted drug delivery in tumor treatment. How It Works biodegradable ultrasound for In the case of arthritis, Nguyen explains, the piezoelectric materials function as an off-the-shelf product that can be implanted or injected directly into the ailing joint — with no drugs, chemicals, or cells required. The everyday force exerted on the joint generates a small electrical charge, which helps regrow healthy cartilage, mimicking the body’s natural use of electricity to regenerate tissue. “The body can be electrically stimulated to regrow,” Nguyen says. PBM’s materials “act like a battery — an everlasting battery that works whenever there is a force applied, and vanishes safely inside the body over time.” PetVivo’s Vision for the Acquisition PetVivo Holdings CEO John Lai expressed enthusiasm for the merger’s potential to improve the lives of companion animals globally. “PBM has developed a compelling functional biomaterials platform with the potential to support the development of multiple medical device and therapeutic product lines across both human and animal health markets,” Lai said in a press release. “By combining PBM’s scientific innovation with PetVivo’s product development capabilities, commercialization experience, regulatory expertise, and public company infrastructure, we believe we can accelerate theadvancement of technologies that may serve as the foundation for numerous future products and strategic opportunities.” For Nguyen, the deal is a chance to scale technology that could eventually benefit both animals and people. “PetVivo is an animal health company, but they do have a big passion: pushing the technology towards clinical trials for human use,” Nguyen says. “That aligned perfectly with my passion for developing technology that has an impact on human life. That is why I am excited about this merger, which facilitates my passion.” A Track Record of Innovation Nguyen’s research sits at the intersection of medicine, micro/nanotechnology, and biomaterials. His inventions have earned him publications in prominent scientific journals and media coverage from outlets including NPR. Nguyen founded PBM during the COVID-19 pandemic, a er realizing the material he had developed could be used to create an especially effective, biodegradable face mask — one where the mechanical force of breathing generated an electrical charge that provided an extra layer of protection against viruses. PBM is not Nguyen’s only venture in the acquisition pipeline. His other startup, Single-Time Microneedles (STM), is also currently undergoing an acquisition process. STM has pioneered stable, efficient vaccine delivery technology in the form of an adhesive patch. shelfNguyen’s focus on biodegradable materials has translated into a remarkably diverse range of medical applications. He has received five R01 grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) supporting research in cartilage regeneration, bone regeneration, HIV antibody delivery systems, and biodegradable ultrasound technology to boost the effectiveness of chemotherapy for brain cancer. “Whatever we are working on, we want to show that it works very well in vitro and in vivo,” Nguyen says. “Then, when we are at the point of commercialization, we set up a startup or license the technology — or maybe team up with an industry partner.” Thanh Nguyen is a professor of mechanical engineering in UConn’s College of Engineering. (Courtesy of Thanh Nguyen

Contact

Monica Brennan
New to The Street
Monica@NewtoTheStreet.com

Mahe, Seychelles, September 8th, 2026, FinanceWire

Infrastructure, transparent rules and clear legal boundaries positioned as the core of the funded-account model

Octrado introduces its proprietary trading, a service that gives traders access to firm capital through a structured evaluation process. Under the model “Your Skill. Our Capital”, the platform positions itself between the retail trader and the funded-account system, with the emphasis placed on the operational layer – data environment, rule clarity, evaluation and payouts – rather than on headline account sizes alone.

The programme follows a simple sequence: the trader registers, selects a programme, meets the stated conditions of the challenge, and — on passing — receives funded trader status with a share of the potentital profits generated. The design principle is that a trader must know in advance what is measured, what the limits are, when a rule is considered breached, and what the route from challenge to payout looks like.

Communicated programme parameters

The offering includes:

• profit split of up to 90%
• account sizes of up to USD 100,000
• leverage of up to 1:100
• the option to hold positions overnight, subject to programme rules
• a restricted weekend trading regime
• defined rules for trading around news releases

The offering also includes trading reports, tracking of trade success rate, drawdown and progress, educational materials, and client support. In an environment where selection is demanding, these elements determine whether a challenge is perceived as a fair test or as an opaque filter.

The professionalisation of proprietary trading is not a question of a better interface. It is the ability to maintain a consistent system — the same rules before and after the challenge, clear documentation, auditable reporting, and a legally correct separation of simulation from the live market. Where a platform holds those layers together, its position in the ecosystem rests on an infrastructure of trust rather than on the marketing of funded accounts.

Prop-trading surges in its volume. In its recent study, analysts of Octrado provided a global estimate, which puts the primary prop-trading market, the direct annual revenue of prop firms, at USD 4.0 to 4.5 billion, and the broader ecosystem value, which adds downstream brokerage fees and notionally allocated capital, at around USD 20 billion.

About Octrado

Octrado is a dynamic investment company built on transparency, innovation, and professional trader support. Rather than developing our own proprietary platform, we rely on the globally trusted MetaTrader 5 (MT5) environment, allowing our clients to trade on a stable, proven, and technologically advanced system recognized worldwide.

Octrado LTD. is a limited liability company regulated as a Securities Dealer by the Seychelles Financial Services Authority of Seychelles (“FSA”) with license number SD013 and with company number 8417634-1 to carry out certain categories of financial investment business as permitted under the Seychelles Securities Act 2007.

For more information users can visit: https://octrado.com/en/trading

Risk Warning – This marketing material is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation, or an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any financial instruments.

Trading in securities involves significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices of securities may fluctuate significantly and may result in a total loss of your investment. Investors should be aware that losses may exceed potential profits when buying and selling securities. In certain market conditions, you may sustain losses that exceed your initial investment. Securities and contracts for differences are complex financial instruments that require a high level of knowledge and understanding. You should carefully consider whether you understand how these instruments work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Contact

Team of analytics
Octrado LTD
support@octrado.com