Ask an ordinary user what makes a trading platform good and the answer is usually that it works. The application opens, the order goes through, the balance updates.

Ask a firm moving large sums and the questions change completely. Who is actually holding the money? What happens if a system fails at the wrong moment? If I sell, do I get the price on the screen, or something worse?

Those questions are unglamorous, and most people never think to ask them. They are also, increasingly, the questions regulators are turning into rules — which is how a technical argument between professionals ends up mattering to everyone else.

What supervisors are looking at

The international body that brings together securities regulators, IOSCO, has set out recommendations for digital asset markets. Stripped of their formal language, they concern a short list of concrete worries: whether a platform can profit at its customers’ expense, whether prices can be manipulated, who holds customer assets and how they are kept separate, and whether systems keep working under stress. These are questions about governance and control, not about technology.

Capital arrives, and brings conditions

One recent example is Project Archimedes, a programme announced in August 2026 by Bitget Institutional and aimed at quantitative trading firms, asset managers and market makers. The company described a capital pool of up to USD 300 million and said participating firms would go through strategy assessment, due diligence and drawdown reviews.

The figure attracts attention. The more durable question is the one underneath it: how a platform decides which firms and which strategies qualify, and what it checks before committing capital. That is a governance process, and it is assessable in a way a headline number is not.

In a separate August announcement, Bitget described its professional-market infrastructure: direct order routing, aggregated liquidity, system connectivity and segregated custody. Each term answers a practical question: who handles an order once it is placed; whether a large order can be completed without moving the price against the customer; how an outside firm’s systems connect; and whether client assets are kept apart from the company’s operating funds.

“As trading becomes more automated and sophisticated, the quality of the infrastructure behind every trade becomes increasingly important,” said Gracy Chen, chief executive of Bitget. The principle holds across professional markets. Faster systems are worth something only when governance, resilience and accountability develop at the same pace.

For banks, the Basel Committee’s cryptoasset standard addresses credit, market, operational and liquidity risk, alongside infrastructure and risk management. It is a standard for bank exposures, not a certification of trading platforms. The wider lesson for institutional participation is the importance of controls that can be assessed, disclosed and supervised.

The same questions, in Cambodia

Cambodia’s existing rules raise related questions for institutions under National Bank of Cambodia supervision. Articles 8 and 9 of Prakas B7-024-735 Prokor require bank boards to establish governance, policies and controls covering credit, market, operational, technology, cyber, legal and financial-crime risks in cryptoasset activities. These are prudential requirements for licensed institutions; they do not confer Cambodian authorisation on a trading platform.

An inter-ministerial working group is also preparing a broader Cambodian law on virtual and digital assets. In September, the Securities and Exchange Regulator of Cambodia described a drafting work plan covering the roles of authorities, financial-crime controls and enforcement. The final law’s requirements have not been decided. For now, questions of custody, governance and accountability remain central to both institutional decisions and regulatory debate.

Key terms
Due diligence	A structured check of a firm, its strategy, controls and risks before capital or services are committed to it.
Liquidity	How much can be bought or sold without moving the price. Deep liquidity means a large order completes close to the price displayed.
Order routing	The path an instruction travels from the customer to whoever actually executes it.
Segregated custody	Holding customer assets separately from a company’s own operating funds, so the two are never mixed.
Operational resilience	Whether systems and controls keep working, or recover safely, when something goes wrong.

This article is for general information and is not financial or investment advice. Cryptoasset activities in Cambodia are subject to regulation by the National Bank of Cambodia and the Securities and Exchange Regulator of Cambodia. Cryptoassets are not legal tender in Cambodia and are not guaranteed by the government or the central bank, and their value can change sharply. Readers should consider the risks carefully and seek independent advice before making financial decisions.