Cryptocurrency industry giant Coinbase is preparing to open an office in Chicago and add support for block trading in a bid to attract more institutional clients to GDAX, its professional trading platform.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, reports that Coinbase will begin offering block trading — which allows traders to place large orders outside of the exchange’s normal order book — as it seeks to build out its institutional client base and solve a key pain point for this demographic.
High-volume traders have a difficult time executing orders at conventional cryptocurrency exchanges since large orders can cause in markets that remain relatively thinly-traded.
With block trading, orders are circulated to market makers outside of the exchange’s continuously-updated order books and transactions are generally published on a delay. These factors help mitigate the effect that large orders have on a cryptocurrency’s exchange price.
The service will presumably be offered through , which currently ranks as the world’s ninth-largest cryptocurrency exchange, with an approximate daily trading volume of $315 million.
New York-based exchange Gemini, which was co-founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, began offering last month.
A variety of other firms offer over-the-counter (OTC) trading for institutional buyers. Goldman Sachs-backed Circle’s cryptocurrency trading desk recently to $500,000, citing significant demand from large-scale traders.
Previously, Coinbase announced that it was launching a cryptoasset custodial service that will be open to clients seeking to store at least $10 million worth of assets.
The publication also reports that the San Francisco-based exchange operator made the decision to open an office in Chicago due to the city’s status as a haven for professional trading firms. Shifting its institutional-focused operations here could help it poach top talent from these firms and develop relationships with traders it hopes to lure to GDAX.
As CCN , Coinbase has allegedly internally valued itself as $8 billion, an approximate increase of $6.4 billion from the formal valuation it received last August at the conclusion of its Series D funding round.
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Published at Tue, 01 May 2018 19:16:48 +0000
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