Solana-Based Pyth Network Adds Institutional Crypto Exchange LMAX as Data Provider

Institutional exchange operator LMAX Group will provide foreign exchange and cryptocurrency trading data to the Solana-based Pyth Network.

LMAX Digital, which has recorded over $6.6 billion in cryptocurrency trading in one day, is the first exchange to join Pyth, a decentralized financial market data distribution network built on the super-fast Solana blockchain, which is backed by FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried and Chicago-based Jump Trading, among others.

Automated digital contracts that run on blockchains obtain financial data from oracle services, which send data from an outside source to a blockchain network. They do so arguably in a more democratized manner than traditional finance does. In some respects Pyth overlaps with Chainlink, the oracle for decentralized finance (DeFi) contracts on the Ethereum network. But Pyth is designed more for high-speed, institutional trading.

“If you look ahead, DeFi, which is currently a scientific experiment, means putting balance sheets up on the blockchain and putting assets to work and earning interest on them,” LMAX Group CEO David Mercer told CoinDesk in an interview, adding:

“Once you accept that people will expect to earn interest, and to stake products on a second-by-second, minute-by-minute basis, then the key question is how do you value this stuff?”

LMAX joins market-making giant GTS, which recently began providing data to Pyth; Mercer said a number of other big players are in the pipeline to offer data.