Skip to content
Article

Are Digital Assets Up to Speed for Institutional Trading?

November 15, 2024 | 1 minutes reading time | By Michael Shashoua

Blockchain technology is being primed for tokenization of assets. In terms of trade execution, an ECN venue is under 10 microseconds.

In the mid-2010s, before founding the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried and some of his associates worked at Jane Street Capital. The highly quantitative firm’s algorithmic trading and risk management systems presumably informed their vision for FTX.

Bankman-Fried concluded that existing crypto exchanges “were not terrifically resilient, not great at risk reduction,” Mark Wetjen, formerly of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, who had joined FTX US as head of policy and regulatory strategy, recounted during a panel discussion at Washington’s American Enterprise Institute on October 4, 2022. FTX engineers set out to build from scratch an exchange that could “bridge traditional finance with digital-asset finance, bring the best of each together.”

That work was apparently still in progress a week later when Bankman-Fried tweeted about an upgrade planned for November 21, 2022: “a whole new order matcher, lower latency API pathways, a whole slew of other features.” It was an answer to “complaints from users [about] the high latency and low throughput of the platform’s matching engine,” as The Block noted in its...

to access this content.

Become a GARP Member to Unlock Exclusive Risk Insights and More!

  • Access timely articles, thought leadership, and an archive of on-demand webcasts, event recordings, and Chapter meeting presentations in our Member Multimedia Library.
  • Get regulatory capital data for global and regional banks in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa through our Pillar 3+ data analytics platform from the GARP Benchmarking Initiative (GBI®).
  • Gain priority registration to attend any worldwide Chapter meeting for free, as well as preferential rates for GARP events and access to local members-only dinners and professional networking opportunities.
  • Receive comprehensive access via our digital GARP Learning platform to the latest curriculum readings, videos, end of chapter practice questions, and more for the program(s) of which you passed the exam(s).

Topics: Digital Currencies

Trending