Crypto trading platform ErisX is expected to launch later this year. The startup is building a team that merges finance veterans with blockchain engineers.
Speaking at this year’s FIA Boca with global markets reporter Jill Malandrino of Nasdaq’s TradeTalks, ErisX CEO Thomas Chipas says the platform is gearing up for launch.
“ErisX is about to launch a spot exchange for crypto, a physically delivered spot contracts, and once we wrap up some regulatory filings, we’ll be launching a futures exchange as well for physically delivered crypto later this year. The team has a lot of legacy experience operating regulated markets previously, so we bring a lot of that experience to the table, along with a lot of new people from capital markets trying to build an exchange suitable for the institutional and retail investors of today.”
“We’re going to be offering spot, and we’re working with a number of retail intermediaries who offer multi-asset trading services to their clients. The platform is offering physically delivered spot in Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Ethereum (ETH), and subject to regulatory approval, we would then be offering futures on those products as well, hopefully later on this year.”
In addition to professionals from traditional markets, Chippas, the former managing director and global head of quantitative prime brokerage at Citi and Barclays, says ErisX has built out its team to include a mix of old and new.
“It’s a pretty diverse group ranging from some technologists that have never worked in capital markets before to others that have only worked in capital markets. We have a diversity of leadership experience as well. People coming from technical and trading backgrounds.
I ran a large global trading business for Barclays and for Citi previously. Our COO Robert Thrash was global head of agency derivatives services at Barclays as well as had large global trading positions. Our head of clearing, Liz James, has 30 years in futures clearing. Kelly Brown, chief commercial officer, ran intermediary sales over at CME.
So we have a lot of people who have built market centers and built solutions for capital markets participants, but we join that up with a lot of technology folks that have a lot of diversity of experience necessary for us to build something new married with something old.”
Chippas says that the company’s investors, including TD Ameritrade, Fidelity Investments, Nasdaq Ventures, Bitmain, ConsenSys, Digital Currency Group and Pantera are very committed to the space.
“Spot is coming imminently. So there will be a lot more coming out about that very, very soon. And then futures – we’re saying second half of this year, but it’s purely up to the speed at which we complete some of the regulatory components. We already have our license necessary to operate a futures exchange. We’re just working through the clearing house application right now.”
The exchange will compete with Coinbase Pro, Gemini, Kraken, CoinFLEX, ICE’s long-awaited crypto trading platform Bakkt, and infrastructure designed to reach institutional traders who want exposure to Bitcoin and other leading crypto assets.
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