We were delighted with the reception of the press release – “Researchers Bring Atomic Clock Timestamp Precision to Stock Market Trading over Distributed Ledgers”. This was the culmination of many months work by Professor Mike Smith, Ben Morris, Bikash Kharel, Xueyi Jiang, Marc Morris, and Alan Simpson. And that was just the Z/Yen team. The project required much aplomb, “self-confidence or assurance, especially when in a demanding situation”, because of the complexity of the software and the hardware, both cutting-edge, as well as the data volumes, exceeding 20 million transactions in just a single hour on a single node at one point. We’re particularly pleased that this demonstrates the ability to exceed 1 trillion transactions per day comfortably if the need and resources are there. Below is a photo of the quantum timing it’s all about, a crystal oscillator fed by atomic clocks at the National Physical Laboratory disseminated by NPLTime®:

Here are links to some of the various mentions in the press:

• Finextra: "Researchers Bring Atomic Clock Timestamp Precision To Stock Trading Over Distributed Ledgers"
• International Business Times: "Blockchain 'Atomic Ledger' Experiment Records 20 Million Timestamped Stock Trades"
• Fintech Finance: "Researchers Bring Atomic Clock Timestamp Precision To Stock Market Trading"
• Mondovisione: "Researchers Bring Atomic Clock Timestamp Precision To Stock Market Trading Over Distributed"

However, we had hoped for a slightly different ‘ribbon cutting ceremony’. We had ribbons and scissors and headed over to the Interxion data centre on Brick Lane. Here is the Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, our dear friend Michael Stewart, who genially came over to lend some ‘gravitas’ to the event on precision timing.

And here’s our group photo, kindly, but amateurishly, shot by security (sic):

Having sent these to Tom Goddard of Interxion, he showed real aplomb and knocked up the one below. Now & Z/Yen readers might just understand why that was the one to go with the press release.