Hidden Road, the crypto prime brokerage, has promoted Michael Higgins to International Chief Executive Officer, further strengthening its leadership. According to Higgins' update on LinkedIn, he assumed the role last month.
Higgins joined Hidden Road in 2019 as a Partner and Head of EMEA and the UK. He was later promoted to Global Head of Business Development, which was also his most recent role. He is based in London.
Heading a Crypto Prime Broker
Hidden Road is a prime broker that already offers cryptocurrency liquidity through over-the-counter (OTC) prime brokerage. It also launched a comprehensive Synthetic Prime Brokerage solution for OTC Swaps, called Route 28, and recently partnered with Finery Markets to introduce an advanced OTC liquidity pool.
Founded in 2018, Hidden Road earlier this year cleared trillions of dollars in the prime brokerage business across forex and digital assets. The number of clients on the platform almost doubled last year.
"We provide access to many things," Higgins told Finance Magnates in a previous interview. "But there are two main ones: access to all the liquidity trading destinations and access to financing. It is the combination of those two access points that allow institutions to trade across the whole ecosystem in a capital and cost-efficient way.”
“We are a sell-side business like a bank but operated with buy-side capital. We have stepped into a highly regulated environment. We run a highly regulated infrastructure to service that part of the ecosystem as well as even the largest names because the largest names don't always get in single clear their business.”
Background in FX
Higgins has a strong background in forex brokerage. Before joining Hidden Road, he was Managing Director at London-based Coronam, which specialised in distributing fully automated algorithmic FX, Equities, Fixed Income, and Commodities pricing and risk management solutions. He also had a brief stint at X Markets Trading, where he served as Global Head of Sales and Distribution.
He made his name in the industry during his tenure at FXCM, where he joined in 2005 as a Sales Trader and left in mid-2015 as Director of Institutional FX Sales for EMEA.
