Linked Global Exchange
A satellite-linked scheme for trading commodities across time zones and exchanges as one continuous market — filed in 1984, when a 24-hour global market was still a proposal, not a fact of life.
International commodity trade exchange · — · filed 1984-10-05 · granted 1987-06-30 · expired 2004-10-05
Playable, self-contained demo. Nothing is sent anywhere; it runs entirely in your browser.
The story
US4677552 describes linking geographically separate commodity exchanges by satellite so trading could, in effect, follow the sun — one continuous market instead of a string of disconnected regional sessions. Filed October 5, 1984, it predates the always-on, follow-the-sun global markets that are now simply how trading works.
It expired on schedule in 2004. By then the idea it was reaching for — a market that never really closes — was infrastructure, not invention.
The demo below links three time-zone exchanges into one order book, the way the 1984 filing imagined it: trade any of them, watch the order flow the same book across the boundary.