A number of Wall Street heavyweights, including Fidelity, Charles Schwab, and Citadel, will soon be launching a cryptocurrency exchange — EDX Markets.
EDXM aims to be the “first-of-its-kind” among centralized crypto exchanges that processes trades through dependable intermediaries. It seeks to offer the best prices by combining liquidity from different market makers.
The global financial service company Charles Schwab, the market maker firms Citadel Securities and Virtu Financial, and the venture capital firms Paradigm and Sequoia Capital are among the companies that are backing EDXM. This list of companies is headed by Fidelity Digital Assets.
These companies — especially Charles Schwab — are called “Wall Street firm” for their prominence in financial markets, in spite of the fact that they are actually not all Wall Street-based.
Interestingly, according to a report from Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz, Fidelity allegedly has plans to “shift retail customers into crypto.” It seems like Novogratz may have been alluding to the news that was released today about EDXM.
More partnerships between EDX Markets and other companies are expected to come in the future.
Tony Acuña-Rohter, formerly the CTO of ErisX, will serve as the CTO of EDXM. Former executives from other companies will also be assigned roles in the firm, such as seats on EDXM’s board of directors. Jamil Nazarili, an ex-executive of Citadel, will be appointed as the CEO of EDXM.
Additionally, EDXM will utilize MEMX’s technology. MEMX is a 2019-founded stock exchange and market operator that has many users in common with the upcoming crypto service.
EDXM said that cryptocurrency is a “$1 trillion global asset class with over 300 million participants,” adding that a platform that can adhere to compliance and security norms is necessary to enable increased demand from “millions more.”
The actual launch date for the exchange has yet to be specified by the company.
