Loading today’s stories
Invest1 distinct publisher3 min readUpdated
A joint comment filed on the last day of the window argues Reg NMS Rule 611's national benchmark cannot govern trades that settle at a block boundary. The SEC now decides.
The Investor · Invest desk
Compiled by The InvestorSomething wrong?How this is made
The Hyperliquid Policy Center and Douro Labs, a contributor to the Pyth Network, filed a joint comment with the SEC on August 17 2026 backing the agency's proposal to rescind Rule 611, and asking regulators to accept independent onchain price feeds where the national benchmark does not fit [1][2]. It landed under docket S7-2026-20 on the same day the comment window closed, which leaves the decision with the Commission [3][4].
Rule 611 is the trade-through rule at the centre of Regulation NMS, adopted in 2005: a broker handling a customer order cannot execute at a worse price when a better one is displayed somewhere else [5][6]. If one exchange shows $90.00 and another $90.01, the broker takes $90.00 [7]. That only works because every US exchange routes quotes to the securities information processors, which publish the national best bid and offer as the reference price for brokers [8]. On June 11 the SEC voted on a proposal to end both Rule 611 and Rule 610(e), the rule barring exchanges from publishing locked or crossed quotes [9][10]. Chairman Paul Atkins has opposed Rule 611 since it was adopted [11]. If it goes, customer protection falls back on brokers' best-execution obligations under FINRA rules [12].
The letter's argument is narrower than a general deregulation case. It claims the NBBO is unfit for blockchain venues on three grounds: the SIPs do not operate on nights, weekends and holidays when onchain markets are trading; large liquidity providers such as automated market makers do not post bids or offers at all, but price by formula; and the clocks do not match, because a feed refreshing in microseconds does nothing for an order that settles at a block boundary [13][14][15]. The letter puts those boundaries at roughly 200 milliseconds on Hyperliquid, 400 on Solana, 12 seconds on Ethereum and about 10 minutes on Bitcoin [16]. Bitcoin's interval is therefore around 3,000 times Hyperliquid's [17].
In place of the NBBO, the letter asks the SEC to recognise a "qualifying reference price" against which onchain orders would be measured, subject to four tests: aggregation of quotes from independent price-setting firms with reported recency and validation data, manipulation-resistant methodology, public and auditable publishers and calculation logic, and periodic checks against SIP and external data [18]. The letter then notes that Douro Labs has built Pyth Pro, a service meant to meet those tests [19].
None of the filers are disinterested. The Hyper Foundation launched the Hyperliquid Policy Center in February 2026 with 1 million HYPE tokens, worth about $30 million at the time, and appointed the crypto lawyer Jake Chervinsky as chief executive [20]. That implies a token price near $30 [21]. The letter also argues best execution should stay anchored in FINRA rules rather than at individual exchanges, singling out rules adopted with immediate effect in June by NYSE American, NYSE Arca, NYSE National and NYSE Texas, on the grounds that exchanges compete for the order flow they would be policing [22][23].
Three things to watch. Whether the SEC writes any reference-price criteria into rule text or leaves the question to FINRA best-execution supervision, which would push the standard-setting into a self-regulatory process rather than a rulemaking with a comment file [12][18]. Whether the NYSE exchange-level rules from June survive a Rule 611 repeal, since they would then be the binding constraint [22]. And whether a commercial feed operator whose product is described in the same letter as the proposed standard can be the one that meets it [19].
Follow any of these and your For You feed starts watching them — no settings page required.
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
The Hyperliquid Policy Center and Pyth Network contributor Douro Labs asked the SEC on August 17 2026 to end Rule 611, filing a joint comment letter backing the agency's proposal to rescind it.
The filers are asking regulators to accept independent onchain price feeds where the national benchmark does not fit.
The comment window closed the same day the letter was filed, leaving the decision to the SEC.
Rule 611, the trade-through rule, is at the core of the Regulation NMS market-structure framework launched in 2005.
Under Rule 611, a broker handling a customer order cannot execute at a worse price when a better one is displayed somewhere else.
Evidence-backed comparisons of source perspectives and observed adoption signals. Read the methodology
Which Builder, Operator, and Investor concerns the observed source mix emphasized—not a truth score.
Evidence, demonstrated adoption, hype gap, incentives, and confidence are assessed independently, each on its own current evidence. How these are measured.
Documented filing, single-outlet sourcing
The core events are concrete and checkable in principle - a dated comment letter, a named docket, a June 11 SEC proposal vote, and specific enumerated tests and settlement intervals. But everything reaches us through one crypto trade publication with no quotation from or link to the primary docket filing, no regulator or exchange comment, and no independent verification of the letter's technical assertions.
No uptake evidence supplied
The supplied material records process events - a comment letter on a closed docket, an SEC proposal vote, and a vendor's self-reported product - but no evidence that any broker, venue, regulator or trading system actually uses a qualifying reference price or Pyth Pro for execution measurement. No user counts, integrations, volumes or regulatory acceptance are disclosed, so adoption cannot be scored without inference.
Mildly overstated: an advocacy filing, not a rule change
The framing that the SEC 'now decides' can read as imminence when the observable fact is one comment letter among presumably many on a docket whose window has closed, with no decision, timetable or regulator reaction reported. The vendor's own product is presented as already meeting a standard that does not yet exist. The gap is kept small because the article states the mechanics carefully and flags the filers' non-neutrality itself.
Filers are direct beneficiaries of the standard they propose
Both filers stand to gain from the outcome they request. HPC was created and endowed by the Hyper Foundation with 1 million HYPE (about $30 million at launch) and advocates for a venue whose settlement latency the letter cites as the fast-path benchmark; Douro Labs contributes to Pyth and has built Pyth Pro, the product it says meets the proposed tests. The article discloses the HPC funding and non-neutrality, which is why this is scored on the filers' interests rather than treated as hidden.
Facts likely right, significance unresolved
Confidence is moderate-low: the reported facts are specific and internally consistent, and the regulatory background is standard, so the filing almost certainly happened as described. What cannot be judged from one outlet with no primary document, no regulator response and no adoption signal is whether the requested qualifying reference price has any prospect of acceptance or effect.
invest
Bitcoin's $72,000 Break Was Mostly Forced Covering, Not Fresh Bids1 distinct publisher
invest
Ondo's tokenized stock book passes $1B, and the collateral is the story1 distinct publisher
leadership
The SEC's Spring 2026 agenda reads like a planning document. Treat it as one1 distinct publisher
invest
Moscow Exchange Puts Perpetuals Inside a Clearing House1 distinct publisher
Distinct publishers with included, body-backed reporting in this cluster.
1 article · August 17, 2026