US Capital Global Securities

Bitfinex Launches Institutional Grande Custody Solution With Koine

BitfinexBitfinex has launched an institutionally oriented post-trade service in collaboration with London-based Koine, thus delivering a trading environment that meets the needs of institutional investors, providing fund managers with a separate custody solution while maintaining continuous ownership throughout the trade lifecycle.

By delivering cross-venue operability, and real-time settlement, with cleared funds, algorithmic traders can dramatically increase capital efficiency leading to a huge growth in trading volumes. Koine is a London-based digital asset custody provider that provides customers with access to a post-trade solution from a business licensed by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority. Koine customers who also have an account on Bitfinex will be able to obtain a line of credit on the Bitfinex trading platform using bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies held with Koine.

At the moment, Koine is only authorized as an Electronic Money Institution (“EMI”) by the UK Financial Conduct Authority for the issuance of electronic money. The firm offers unregulated financial services in respect of custody and settlement of digital assets and fiat money. It is, however, seeking further appropriate regulatory licenses in trusted jurisdictions with the aim of providing its clientele with the most robustly regulated solution available for digital assets at a global level.

The post-trade service is specifically designed for institutional investors to mitigate counterparty, insolvency, and credit risks of trading on exchanges. Koine provides settlement and segregated custody services for digital assets along with digital assets to fiat. Koine’s unique security model replaces the cold storage and hot wallet model that can compromise the security of private keys as a result of still needing to be “eye-balled” by staff. Koine combines its digital asset security model with fiat custody and DvP settlement to provide a post-trade solution that is suitable for traditional capital markets.

Hugh Hughes, Chairman, and CEO at Koine, commented: “Collaborating with Bitfinex to help bring new funds into their trading environment is an extremely important step in our evolution. It is leading exchanges like these that will benefit from the shift to a more traditional market structure that will quickly lead to institutional capital participation and the rapid growth of trading from algorithmic funds.”

Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Bitfinex, said: “We have always focused on building a service fit for institutional trading. In this collaboration with Koine for the delivery of custody post-trade infrastructure, we make another step on the path towards massive institutional participation in the crypto-trading market.”

Bitfinex was founded in 2012 and has grown to become one of the world’s leading digital asset trading platforms, offering state-of-the-art services for digital token traders and global liquidity providers. Bitfinex also provides access to peer-to-peer financing, an OTC market, and financed trading for a wide selection of digital assets.