The 5-Day Trade That Explains Everything Happening in Crypto

Five business days.

That’s how long it took for a single trade to settle back in the 1980s. I know because I was there.

Before I became the youngest vice president in Shearson Lehman’s history at age 20, I started as an assistant for the big-time brokers at the company.

That job gave me a front-row seat to how Wall Street really worked back then.

You’d call a trader. That trader would call the floor. The floor broker would walk it over to the specialist.

The specialist would execute the trade. Then, at the end of the day, the specialist had to even up his book with every other specialist he’d done business with.

Runners carried physical stock certificates from one brokerage firm to another. The certificates went to the stock transfer room, then to the margin clerk, then through back-office staff, until the trade was finally settled.

Five days. For one trade.

Wall Street doesn’t run like that anymore. But the old assumption survived for decades: every transaction needed a human in the middle.

And let me tell you, the floor didn’t change that idea willingly. Technology made the old way too slow, too expensive, and too hard to justify.

Forcing Wall Street’s Hand