Crypto exchange EDX Markets has seen trading activity take off on its platform in 2024, reporting over $36 billion in volume since January from institutional clients.
According to the exchange, its average daily volume rose by 59% over the third quarter of this year. EDX’s proprietary matching engine is said to have processed more than 2 million trades and over 2.6 billion orders in October.
Founded in 2022, the company is backed by many top Wall Street firms, including Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, Fidelity Digital Assets and Sequoia Capital.
EDX primarily serves institutional clients, such as brokers and market makers, promising to merge the expertise of traditional banking with digital asset solutions. Its market debut came just a few months following FTX’s collapse and amid intense regulatory scrutiny by the US Securities and Exchange Commission on major retail exchanges, such as Binance and Coinbase.
According to a recent report by The Economist sponsored by OKX, institutional investors are set to increase digital asset allocations in their portfolio to 7% by 2027. Currently, asset managers dedicate between 1% and 5% of their portfolios to digital assets.
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Crypto firms have been increasingly targeting services to meet this institutional demand, including trading, clearing and custodian solutions. Ripple, for instance, introduced in October its digital asset custody services for banks and fintech companies. Nearly a year ago, exchange Coinbase rolled out a crypto lending service for institutional investors in the United States.
Despite concerns on the regulatory front, the industry has also welcomed a number of traditional companies over the past two years. BNY Mellon, the oldest bank in the United States, launched a custody platform in October 2022 to allow institutional clients to safeguard their Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) holdings. Germany’s third-largest bank, DZ Bank, introduced a similar custodian service in November 2023.
State Street is also working on a digital asset service for institutional clients. Its upcoming platform will offer tokenization, node management and custodial services. Currently, the company manages about $4.3 trillion in assets.
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