Ethereum
Standard Chartered creates Bitcoin and Ethereum trading desk in London
British multinational bank Standard Chartered is establishing a Bitcoin and Ethereum trading desk in London, according to a report from Bloomberg.
This will make it one of the first global banks to enter spot crypto trading, following in the wake of spot. Bitcoin And Ethereum ETF pending approval in the United States. Standard Chartered’s new crypto desk will begin trading soon, two people told the outlet, and will be part of the Forex trading unit.
“We are working closely with our regulators to meet our institutional clients’ demand to trade Bitcoin and Ethereum, in line with our strategy to support clients across the digital asset ecosystem, access and from curation to tokenization and interoperability,” Standard Chartered said. Decryptechoing the statement he made to Bloomberg.
But Standard Chartered refused to respond Decrypt request for additional comments.
Bank partly owns institutional cryptocurrency custodian Zodiac Guard and backed an institutional digital asset trading company Zodiac Markets. Now establishing his own spot cryptocurrency trading desk clearly shows his intention to delve deeper into the world of digital assets, after delving into investing.
Other banks have traded cryptocurrencies before, but due to regulations they had to trade derivatives rather than the asset itself. For example, Goldman Sachs began trading Bitcoin Futures Contracts in 2020, then opened its Bitcoin Derivatives Trading Desk in 2021.
The Basel Committee, an organization that sets global standards for banksrecommended in a 2022 Report that banks should apply a risk weight of 1,250% when trading crypto assets. This term refers to the amount of capital a bank must have in reserve to counter the risk of the investment. Industry experts have noted that this incredibly high weighting makes it difficult for banks to make a profit on cryptocurrency trading.
Standard Chartered has been bullish on crypto recently. In May, he predicted Bitcoin and Ethereum would hit historic highs after the spot Ethereum ETFs have been approved in the USA. Soon the bank predicted that Solana and XRP ETF would be the next to be approved in the United States.
“Even though this is probably a 2025 story and not a 2024 story,” said Geoffrey Kendrick, head of cryptocurrency and emerging markets foreign exchange research at Standard Chartered.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.