The world's largest broker TP ICAP launches bitcoin futures trading

The British company TP ICAP, known as the largest inter-dealer broker in the world, will act as an intermediary in its clients' transactions for buying and selling bitcoin futures , writes Bloomberg .

The new division of the company in London will add non-deliverable forwards to the leading cryptocurrency to the list of supported instruments, after which it plans to open trading floors in Asia and the USA.

As noted by Bloomberg, inter-dealer brokers have historically conducted transactions for banks, but the volume of their activity declined after the financial crisis. Last year, a warning about lower profits made TP ICAP's capitalization fall by 36% in one day.

Customers who want to work with digital assets through a firm will need to undergo identification and verification aimed at countering money laundering, said TP ICAP regional director Fritz Vogels.

Initially, it is planned to provide customers with access to the bitcoin futures market CME. At the same time, the company is considering the possibility of working with various cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets . It does not exclude the possibility that in the future it may begin to trade directly in the cryptocurrency market assets, and not their derivatives.

“We want to be close to what is happening in this new class of assets, because we believe that it is important to invest in emerging markets in the early stages ,” said Simon Forster, head of the new venture.

TP ICAP understands that this technology may affect other classes of assets with which we are currently working, so we believe that we should remain informed. "

Publication date 18.06.2019
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