New Crypto Platform Launches

The crypto trading world just got a little bit more fragmented with the launch of a bank and securities firm-only CLOB offering trading in Bitcoin and Ethereum against the US dollar.

RuleMatch has launched in Switzerland for banks and securities firms only in certain countries, and claims execution times as low as 30 microseconds, as well as integrated post-trade settlement with multilateral clearing, that allows for trading with up to 75% less upfront liquidity required when compared to existing trading venues.

BBVA and DLT Finance have been named as initial participants, along with an unnamed Swiss cantonal bank. Liquidity is “guaranteed” by designated market makers including Flow Traders, which has entered into a strategic partnership with Rulematch, and Bankhaus Scheich Wertpapierspezialist’s tech arm Tradias.

The new platform leverages Nasdaq’s pre-trade risk, trading, and market surveillance technology, and the matching engine is hosted in two data centres in the Zurich metro area where participants and their clients may cross connect and co-locate.

“Despite often going unnoticed, a growing number of banks and financial institutions have actually been quite active in the crypto market, but, as we all know, they have faced challenges due to the many fundamental deficiencies in existing market infrastructure – capital efficiency, counterparty risk, compliance and latency,” observes David Riegelnig, CEO of RuleMatch. “On RuleMatch, these banks and their institutional clients are now expanding their activities and deploying many of the same strategies that they have used in traditional markets. This bodes well for liquidity and development in the market – and also for the next wave of evolution in digital assets.”