Markets are being rebuilt to run nearly around the clock, and the software expected to trade, pay and underwrite inside them increasingly includes AI agents. The dossier shows both halves of that shift. It also shows a gap between them: the infrastructure for agents to prove who they are is only now being funded, and one prominent investor says the technology should not be trusted with calculations.
The funding signal: identity for agents
Baselayer, an AI-powered startup that helps financial institutions verify businesses and assess fraud risk, has raised $35 million to extend its identity technology to AI agents. M13 led the San Francisco company's Series A, with participation from Picus Capital.1 The pitch rests on a trust problem. Baselayer's Jonathan Awad put it this way: "Agents spin up and they spin down. How can you trust this random one-task agent?"1 His warning is blunt: unless agents can establish that they act on behalf of legitimate people or businesses, "agents will just get blocked everywhere."1
For practitioners, the important detail is the sales cycle, not the model. Awad says relationships with financial institutions typically take 12 to 18 months to establish, and large merchant partnerships can take up to 24 months.1 He also says the company has "essentially streamlined 10 years' worth of selling into two years."1 Agent identity is a compliance product, so it is gated by institutional trust rather than by how good the model is. Capability is not the bottleneck that this funding round addresses.
The counterweight: AI and the maths problem
The most direct caution comes from Sean Jacobsohn of Norwest: "You don't want AI doing calculations because it is not good at math. There are certain workflows it can handle where it doesn't produce precise numbers. But when you need precision, accuracy and calculations, you can't rely on AI for that."2
Taken together with Baselayer's raise, this describes a split in how AI is being applied to finance. Verification, identity and fraud assessment are being funded. Precision arithmetic is flagged as a place to keep deterministic systems. Jacobsohn is one investor, and the dossier contains no benchmark data on agent accuracy. Treat this as informed opinion, not a measured result.
On where AI-era software competition might land, Jacobsohn says it would be "very hard to disrupt the core products of Workday, ADP, SAP, UKG and Dayforce," but "easier to disrupt some of their secondary products."2 He also sees "a potential opportunity to disrupt NetSuite and Sage," with disruption happening more downmarket first.2
The market side: more hours, more contract types
Nasdaq says the industry's move to a 23-hour trading day is expected on Sunday, December 6, 2026. That depends on SIP readiness and SEC rule changes, and, subject to SEC approval, Nasdaq would add a 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. ET session.3 Separately, the CFTC announced on October 28 that it will host an industry roundtable on December 15 on whether derivatives markets can move to 24/7 trading.3
A market that never closes suits software that never sleeps. That is our inference, not a claim in the sources. Nothing in the dossier says agents are driving these changes.
On product design, Cboe announced on September 30 at Robinhood's HOOD Summit that it plans binary contracts tied to company-specific key performance indicators, expected in October 2026 and subject to regulatory approval. Robinhood would be the first retail broker to offer them.4 Cboe's Steve Quirk said earnings contracts "give retail investors another tool to inform their strategies and offer an even more precise way to trade on anticipated company KPIs."4
What Robinhood's checked numbers show
Robinhood is the retail face of this shift, and its SEC-filed figures are fidelity-checked. Revenue rose from $1.865 billion in fiscal 2023 to $2.951 billion in 2024 and $4.473 billion in 2025, roughly 2.4 times the 2023 level.5 Net income moved from a loss of $541 million in 2023 to profits of $1.411 billion in 2024 and $1.883 billion in 2025.5 Earnings per share went from -$0.61 to $1.56 to $2.05 over the same years.5
For a technology reader, the R&D line is worth noticing. Research and development expense was $349 million in 2023, $323 million in 2024 and $355 million in 2025.5 Revenue grew about 2.4 times while that spending stayed roughly flat. That is Via News's observation from the filed numbers. They do not say why, and they cannot tell us how much of the product work is AI.
Cash ended Q2 2026 at $5.362 billion, up from $4.261 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.5 One seam to flag: two records for cash on September 30, 2025 differ, at $4.331 billion in the filing-derived figure and $4.3 billion in another. The roughly $31 million gap looks like rounding, but we are using the precise filed figure.5
The Q3 results reported October 27 show the product shift. Event contract revenue rose more than sixfold to $173 million, while crypto revenue fell 55% year on year to $120 million. Total revenue rose 12% to a record $1.42 billion. Net income fell 14% to $476 million, and diluted EPS fell 16% to $0.51.6 In other words, record revenue came with lower profit.
Regulators are adapting unevenly
On October 27 the CFTC sued Utah to block state efforts to shut down CFTC-registered contract markets under state law. It said it has started legal proceedings against nine other states.6 Meanwhile, Coinbase set a three-day deadline tied to the EU's MiCA stablecoin rules, converting non-compliant stablecoins to USDC automatically and telling users not to deposit them after October 30.6 Treasury Secretary Bessent said on October 27 that stablecoins could reinforce dollar dominance and that Treasury could coordinate with the SEC and CFTC on crypto rules.6
The practical point for anyone building agentic finance is that the rules differ by jurisdiction. Each state is a potential legal front, and the stablecoin deadline shows compliance can arrive with days of notice. An agent that transacts across these venues will need to prove its principal, and the rules for it will differ in different places.
How much to trust the sources
We measure source reliability, and it is mixed. Of 6,322 claims checked from the Cboe/Robinhood press-release source, 53% held up.4 For the Crunchbase News pieces, 49% of 41 checked claims held up.1,2 That means the funding amount, the quotes and the product announcement should be read as reported, not as verified outcomes. The Robinhood financials are different: they trace to SEC filings and were checked against them.
What to watch
- December 6: whether Nasdaq's 23-hour session starts, which depends on SIP readiness and SEC rule changes.3
- December 15: the CFTC's 24/7 derivatives roundtable.3
- Robinhood's event-contract revenue after its sixfold jump to $173 million, and whether the KPI contracts, subject to regulatory approval, add to it.4,6
- Baselayer's agent-identity customers: given the 12 to 24 month relationship timelines Awad describes, early traction should show up slowly.1
- The CFTC's state lawsuits, which will show how much room event-contract venues get.6