Cowen Unveils Digital Assets Unit

Broker-dealer Cowen has announced the opening of a digital assets division, Cowen Digital to offer trade execution and custody solutions with secure and compliant access to the digital asset ecosystem. Custody solutions are provided through Cowen’s strategic partnership with PolySign’s Standard Custody & Trust.

The firm says over the last 15 months it has been focused on building the infrastructure and systems necessary to launch the new venture, adding it brings proven expertise in traditional finance to support and assist institutional clients as they plan and execute their digital asset investment strategies, underpinned by Cowen’s infrastructure.

Drew Forman has been named head of the new venture, he has worked at Cowen for more than four years as head of equity derivatives. Prior to that he worked in trading and sales roles at Macro Risk Advisors, Nomura and JP Morgan.

As is the case with the firm’s TradFi business, clients are able to access Cowen’s aggregated liquidity through one counterparty; utilise its proprietary algorithms through high-touch or low-touch trading; and benefit from streamlined operational and capital efficiencies as well as post-trade reporting.

Cowen Digital will also offer the ability to trade directly from Standard Custody’s cold storage solution, avoid pre-funding requirements and receive flexible net settlement arrangements, and access analysis from Cowen Research and its policy experts, Washington Research Group

Future functionality will include derivatives and futures, financing solutions as well as institutional DeFi and NFT access, the firm adds.

“Through Cowen Digital, our clients now have access to the crypto and digital asset markets with our institutional quality and fully integrated end-to-end execution and custody capabilities,” says Jeffrey Solomon, chair and CEO of Cowen. “Cowen is committed to outperforming for its clients by staying at the forefront of innovation.”

Dan Charney, co-president of Cowen and Company, adds, “We are very pleased to publicly announce Cowen Digital, which has been trading crypto on behalf of our clients for several months. In conjunction with our integrated partners Standard Custody and prime brokerage solutions provider, Digital Prime Technologies, Cowen Digital provides our institutional client base with the same dedicated level of thought leadership, product capability, service and professionalism they have come to expect from Cowen.”