Banking Giant Standard Chartered To Launch London-Based Bitcoin and Ethereum Trading Desk: Report

British banking titan Standard Chartered is reportedly going to roll out a Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) trading desk based in London.

According to a new report by Bloomberg, anonymous sources familiar with the matter say that the financial services giant is venturing into the world of spot market crypto trading.

The sources say that the new desk is close to launching, though no specific date was mentioned, and that it will be part of the bank’s foreign exchange trading service.

As stated by Standard Chartered to Bloomberg in an email,

“We have been working closely with our regulators to support demand from our institutional clients to trade Bitcoin and Ethereum, in line with our strategy to support clients across the wider digital asset ecosystem, from access and custody to tokenization and interoperability.”

Last year, Standard Chartered launched Libeara, a blockchain platform that aims to assist firms with real-world asset tokenization.

Earlier this year, analysts at Standard Chartered raised their price prediction for the top crypto asset by market cap in 2025 by 50% due to the success of spot market Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which were greenlit by regulators in January.

At the time, analyst Geoff Kendrick said in a note to investors that the bank is raising its 2025 price target for the crypto king from $100,000 to $150,000.

Bitcoin is trading for $64,132 at time of writing, a 1.55% decrease during the last 24 hours.

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