##oking ahead of course, the structure of the treasury market will continue to evolve, along with changes in technology and the broader financial environment. looking forward, we will need to ask more of the data as we seek to understand what is next for the structure of the treasury market. as i mentioned earlier, experimentation with new protocols is occurring now. although all - to - all trading in the treasury market was contemplated at the first conference, direct streaming largely was not, which might prompt us to ask what else is on the horizon. in addition to direct streaming, another development that bears watching is the batch auction platforms that have arisen in the voice idb market, something that has not received as much attention from market participants. started after the financial crisis, batch auctions are now conducted by a number of idb firms at regular intervals throughout the trading day. like any closed auction, the idb collects anonymous bids and offers for a specific security in specific amounts during a relatively short window of time, generally on the order of a few minutes. after the batch auction closes, the orders are matched, and participants are notified of their awards. 11 figure 5, based on trace data, depicts average trading volumes of tips securities in the idb venue of the market across five - minute intervals. as you can see, the level of activity rises significantly at intervals, which correspond to the timing of the auctions. while it is not a large part of the overall market, this activity appears to be an important innovation for segments often deemed to be less liquid - - in particular, for off - the - run and tips trading on voice idbs. note that these auctions differ from proposed high - frequency batch auctions in that they are held at much less frequent intervals, typically separated by hours and, in some cases, occurring only once a day or a week. - 9before the collection of the trace data, there was limited insight into this area of the market, which made it difficult to assess the significance of such innovations. no doubt there are other innovations that have yet to be assessed. recently, the debate over liquidity has turned toward the participation of proprietary trading firms in the off - the - run segment of the market, an area outside of their traditional domain. all - toall and direct - streaming platforms are also attempting to establish a foothold in the offthe - run segment by offering new services. i look forward to further analysis as the structure of the market continues to

that allow clients access to internal software for pricing and structuring transactions. the landscape for proprietary trading firms has changed considerably in recent years, too. since 2015, we have witnessed the first initial public offering by a proprietary trading firm, as well as a few high - profile mergers and acquisitions. 3 the industry is contending with declining revenue growth and diminished returns by expanding operations into new asset classes and geographies. proprietary trading firms are also adapting in other ways. some have begun to offer broker - dealer services themselves or appear to be contemplating such a business model change. still others have entered joint these developments include the mergers and acquisitions between virtu and kcg and between teza and quantlab. see cnbc ( 2017 ), “ trading firm virtu financial to buy kcg for about $ 1. 4 billion, ” cnbc, april 20, https : / / www. cnbc. com / 2017 / 04 / 20 / two - high - speed - trading - firms - merge - in - 1 - 4 - billion - deal. html ; and gregory meyer ( 2017 ), “ teza sells high - speed trading as lucrative business sours, ” financial times, march 21. - 4ventures with one another to finance new investment in faster microwave communications and defray the high costs of that infrastructure. 4 third - party providers are also offering high - speed links to firms that wish to engage in high - frequency trading without investing directly in microwave tower infrastructure. we have seen important recent changes among infrastructure providers as well. cme group ’ s acquisition of nex and the brokertec platform has recently been finalized, with direct implications for the structure of the treasury market. 5 we have also witnessed the conclusion of j. p. morgan ’ s exit from broker - dealer settlement services in the triparty treasury repo market and the transition to bny mellon government securities services corp. as a subsidiary offering treasury market settlement services. beyond these changes, some new trading platforms are experimenting with the very structure of the market. 6 these platforms are promoting new trading models such as all - to - all trading, in which many buy - side and sell - side participants transact directly, and direct streaming, in which live continuous, executable prices are delivered electronically under bilaterally or multilaterally negotiated terms. these services can potentially bridge all of the venues of the treasury market, connecting not just dealers and proprietary trading firms, but also those entities with buy -