London-based cryptocurrency Liquidity provider B2C2 has partnered with California-based cryptocurrency prime dealer SFOX to provide high-volume investors--including asset managers, hedge funds, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals--with a new source of liquidity. The partnership marks the first time an over-the-counter (OTC) trading venue has been added to the SFOX platform.
“We are delighted to partner with B2C2, the largest OTC liquidity provider whose streaming pricing and electronic trading capabilities are relied on by institutional market participants globally,” said Danny Kim, Head of Growth at SFOX, in an official statement. “SFOX clients will now benefit from a new source of OTC liquidity coupled with greater price discovery.”
Danny Kim, Head of Growth at SFOX.
In terms of OTC trading volume, crypto is looking a lot more like FX these days
Cryptocurrency markets have made a considerable shift away from traditional exchanges and toward OTC platforms as more high-volume investors have come into the space. For example, in August of 2019, Nelson Minier, head of OTC trading at major cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, told CoinTelegraph that the OTC desk’s trades per month had increased by a factor of 20 since the beginning of 2018.
An official announcement from the company said that “the development of the crypto market is mirroring the evolution of FX markets, which are almost entirely Over the Counter (OTC) as opposed to on-exchange,” which is resulting in “tighter spreads, better price discovery and deeper liquidity.”
“Also, from a technological infrastructure perspective, crypto markets still lag behind mainstream financial markets with trading traditionally fragmented across dozens of exchanges,” the announcement said.
“However, the industry is maturing and firms such as B2C2 and SFOX are partnering in order to offer the technology and tools expected by an institutional marketplace.” SFOX says that building crypto markets is the core of its company mission.
Max Boonen, Founder and CEO of B2C2.
Max Boonen, Founder and CEO of B2C2, said that the partnership would allow “a broader set of market participants to access B2C2’s real-time OTC pricing and deep two-way markets.”
Both companies have launched new products within the last several months
The news comes just under a month after SFOX announced the launch of Separately Managed Account Solution, a tool that was built to allow fund managers to create individual crypto portfolios.
“The Separately Managed Accounts Solution could lower the operational costs of wealth and investment managers, creating more time and tools for building crypto businesses,” the official announcement of the launch explained. “Combined with SFOX’s other tools, managers now have a single-point solution for their entire fund management workflow.”
In October, B2C2 launched a gold-backed derivative product that is settled in Bitcoin . The product is Only available to institutional clients, who can trade the product via the company’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)-regulated OTC trading desk.
