Wall Street going open 24/7 is bad news for Bitcoin and the US economy

Wall Street is rewriting the rules, and not everyone’s excited. Plans are reportedly underway to stretch stock market hours to near 24/7 trading, and while that sounds like a good idea for this author and other night owls glued to trading apps, it spells bad news for Bitcoin and potentially for the US economy.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), which is the largest and most influential stock market in the world, wants to extend its hours from 4 a.m.–8 p.m. to a longer stretch of 1:30 a.m.–11:30 p.m.

Already, in 2024, the SEC approved 24 Exchange (24X), a Bermuda-based group funded by billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Cohen’s Point72 Ventures. They plan to offer nearly continuous trading for stocks, leaving just one hour of downtime each day for system updates.

Overnight traders are already running the show

Robinhood’s late-night trading spike on Monday during DeepSeek’s short-lived rise, which triggered the second-highest volume in the platform’s overnight session, second only to the US presidential election.

For Robinhood, this isn’t new. They’ve been offering overnight trading for the past 18 months. But the fact that this session ranked so high shows how deep the appetite for around-the-clock trading is.

Retail investors, once known for checking their portfolios during lunch breaks, are now trading Amazon and Tesla at midnight from their couches. We’re using trading apps as easily as we shop online. The pandemic helped create this behavior after our hero, Roaring Kitty (Keith Gill), showed us what was possible.

When the world was locked down, we found trading stocks as entertaining as binge-watching Netflix. And then we found Kitty’s live streams, where he kept talking about the market in such a fun and effortlessly cool way that it just had to draw us in, especially the Gen Zs.

So even after we got off work or school, many were stuck with after-hours trading, and Robinhood gave them the tools. But the overnight session from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. in New York also connects directly to Asia, where household investors love trading major US stocks during their daytime hours.

Wall Street’s larger push for non-stop action

Meanwhile, Charles Schwab has also jumped in, offering overnight trading to its most active clients. Schwab’s clients can now trade over 500 stocks and ETFs after hours, up from just 24 ETFs before.

This is making Wall Street rethink everything. When does a trading day officially begin and end if markets are always open? What will the closing price of a stock mean when there’s no clear “end of the day”? Asset managers like BlackRock (who is actually also a Bitcoin whale) also worry about waking up to margin calls and overnight price swings.

Historically, US stock markets stuck to traditional business hours. Even in the early days of informal trading in Manhattan coffee houses, there were clear opening and closing bells. But crypto never followed those rules. Bitcoin’s always-on trading environment changed the game forever.

That’s why Wall Street’s move to non-stop trading will steal Bitcoin’s thunder. Investors who used to see Bitcoin as a 24/7 alternative might now choose Apple or Tesla instead. I mean quite frankly they’re way more stable.

It feels much safer going to bed with TSLA or NVDA than BTC. It’d take a lot (like a full-blown financial crisis or a company filing for bankruptcy) for these stocks to lose 15% of their value overnight. Can we say the same about Bitcoin?

The dollar already trades 24/7, and futures contracts tied to the S&P 500 are traded across global time zones, from Tokyo mornings to European afternoons. With stocks set to join the mix, Bitcoin’s exclusivity as a round-the-clock market is slipping away right before our very eyes.

But there’s also a dark side to this. A non-stop market makes price swings inevitable. Global events hit instantly. Political chaos in Asia, a tech announcement in Silicon Valley, or some eccentric billionaire’s tweet at midnight can flip Bitcoin’s price in seconds.

And things get wilder during weekends or late-night hours when there’s less trading volume. In a continuous trading world, there’s no time for markets to “digest” anything. Investors hit the panic button (or the buy button) right away, and prices across both stocks and Bitcoin could whiplash more than ever.

Think about it: crypto traders love the flexibility of trading anytime, anywhere. But if stocks offer that same flexibility, some of these traders could switch sides. Retail investors who’ve grown accustomed to Bitcoin’s 24/7 lifestyle might test the waters in a round-the-clock stock market. And if they find it less nerve-wracking, Bitcoin could lose part of its fanbase.

Implications for the US economy

The proposed 24/7 trading could make US markets way more attractive to foreign investors. Think about someone in Tokyo or Dubai—traditional US market hours aren’t exactly convenient for them. Now, with round-the-clock access, they can jump in whenever they want. This could open the floodgates for foreign money pouring into US equities, making Wall Street an even bigger player in the global economy.

But with that comes increased competition and, of course, higher stakes. That means if something like DeepSeek happens again and the market loses trillions of dollars again, it’ll be felt everywhere. And the crash will be much faster, and much bigger.

Also, regulatory bodies like the SEC will have to work overtime too, making sure these markets are not being manipulated, which is going to get a lot harder as it goes on.

Lower liquidity during off-hours is prime time for market manipulation. With fewer players in the game, it’s easier for bad actors to push prices around, creating opportunities for pump-and-dump schemes and all kinds of other shady behavior, which will spill over to the stock market as it gets more and more correlated to Bitcoin.

Economic indicators used to be digested slowly. You’d get a report at 8:30 AM, and markets would adjust after the opening bell. But 24/7 trading? that could change. Now, news from any corner of the world could trigger immediate reactions in stocks, crypto, and even bonds at any hour. The markets won’t sleep, and neither will the traders trying to keep up. It’s actually could be a dystopia, and at that point, there ain’t no stopping it.