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Technology

Cosmic rays can help synchronise the global financial system

Particles generated by cosmic rays can penetrate indoor and underground environments with ease, and could provide a more secure alternative to GPS for synchronising financial transactions worldwide

By Jeremy Hsu

8 July 2024

New York Stock Exchange

The New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street

Hans-Werner Rodrian / Alamy

Cosmic ray particles capable of penetrating even the densest buildings or underground structures can provide an essentially foolproof timing system for synchronising high-frequency trades in the world’s international stock exchanges.

High-frequency trading is a method involving powerful computers that allows traders to analyse markets and make large numbers of profitable transactions each second – and in order to work, the method requires stock exchanges to be synchronised with nanosecond precision. Financial firms currently rely on time servers synchronised by GPS and other global navigation satellite systems to…

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