NYSE Parent Company Planning Crypto Exchange
According to sources from within the company that wish to remain anonymous, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, Intercontinental Exchange (also known as ICE) has been working on creating an online cryptocurrency exchange that would let big investors purchase as well as hold Bitcoin.
Wall Street’s Shift towards Cryptocurrencies
Details of the new exchange are still not available and Intercontinental Exchange declined to comment on this news. However, while the work that ICE is doing towards building its crypto exchange is still confidential, the news comes after Goldman Sachs, one of the biggest banks in the US announced its intention of opening a Bitcoin trading unit, which would be the first of its kind on Wall Street.
Moves such as these show the dramatic shift in perception on Wall Street towards the cryptocurrency industry as a whole. The industry that was previously known as a haven for underworld activities as well as being high risk speculation is now becoming mainstream, with many large and reputed corporates moving towards cryptocurrency adoption.
And while not everyone in the financial world is happy about the move towards cryptocurrency adoption (a number of banks listed cryptocurrencies as possible threats to their profitability in the near future), no one doubts that cryptocurrencies and Blockchain are the way to the future.
Thus, many major banks and financial institutions are now beginning to create their own footprint in this new world of cryptocurrencies. Large financial institutions such as CME (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) and Cboe (Chicago Board Options Exchange) have already launched their own Bitcoin-based futures contracts that just recently reached record trading levels.
The New ICE Exchange
The ICE exchange, however, is expected to be slightly different from either CME or Cboe. The expectation is that the ICE exchange will give users more direct access to BTC because the exchange will put the actual token in the users’ accounts at the end of the trade (rather than futures that are dealing in fiat currencies).
The sources at the company stated that ICE has already had conversations with other finance institutions with regard to setting up operations via which banks could buy contracts – known as “swaps” – that will end up letting customers own BTC by the end of the next trading day. The key thing here would be that customers would be offered the backing and security of the exchange in their trading.
By taking the option of a swap contract, the future ICE exchange will come under the jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and will operate above the board within clearly existing laws.