Yeah, but we're thinking of systems where nanoseconds matter.

MiFID 2 alone forces sub-μs precision. Million times less than the leap 1 second.

NTP minute away is good for displaying date on the workstation, not for many of the devices that are critical to the modern world.

dont most systems that rely on sharp timing simply manage it themselves.

Yesno.

Sure they have their own time servers fed from the GPS, but they need to be _accurate_ in relation to the world.

But timestamps used by companies forced to use very accurate timing must be synchronised to UTC.

MiFID 2 does not require nanosecond accuracy. It's something like 100 microseconds in the strictest case.

Some MiFID reports require microsecond or perhaps nanosecond precision, but that's really just a formatting requirement "please write your timestamps with six figures after the decimal point."

I said, quote "MiFID 2 alone forces sub-μs precision", and not that it "requires nanoseconds accuracy". Put the strawman away.

It's not "something like 100μs", it's 100 times less: 1μs.

From a convenient QA:

> Algorithmic and high-frequency trading (HFT) firms must timestamp to 1 microsecond (μs) accuracy, synchronized to UTC. For venues and systematic internalisers executing algorithmic strategies, this microsecond-level precision is non-negotiable. Other investment firms trading on venues must achieve 1 millisecond (ms) accuracy.

No, precision means actually precision, not a length of a number.