There's nothing intrinsic about markets that says they have to move towards faster and faster trading. For example, markets could decide that they now want to c

There's nothing intrinsic about markets that says they have to move towards faster and faster trading. For example, markets could decide that they now want to clear every second, on the second. That's larger than the RTT around the globe and so global markets could remain in sync. The spread would increase marginally but the upside is that PhDs could focus on making their algorithms smarter, not just faster.