Wall Street Falls Behind: One Firm Trades Bitcoin for the Past Two Years 🚨 This article is 6 years old...
Wall Street Falls Behind: One Firm Trades Bitcoin for the Past Two Years
2 min read
Updated: Nov. 7, 2019 at 2:55 am UTC
Photo by Luca Bravo on Unsplash
As one of the earliest adopters of institutional digital assets trading, Susquehanna International Group, founded in 1987, has been ahead of the blockchain curve – actively trading cryptocurrencies for the past two years.
Wall Street is Old News
In contrast to traditional financial markets, cryptocurrency draws a worldwide, 24/7 audience of retail and institutional investors.
As blockchain and cryptocurrency continue to grow, the once-resistant firms of Wall Street are changing sentiment and moving towards a new era of digital financial instruments.
Goldman Sachs and the NYSE parent company Intercontinental Exchange are just two examples of major investment firms seeking to join the crypto community by planning the launch of their own Bitcoin futures trading desks.
Bullish on Bitcoin
In an interview with NYT, Bart Smith, head of the digital asset group at Susquehanna, expressed his support for blockchain and cryptocurrency:
“We believe that this technology and this asset class is going to change some facet of financial services, and we think it is going to exist forever.”
An Early Opportunity
First exposed to Bitcoin trading in 2014, Susquehanna International Group was contacted by the Winklevoss twins for assistance with the launch of their Bitcoin ETF.
Although regulators didn’t approve of the ETF, Susquehanna decided to maintain its Bitcoin trading desk and hired a few more digital assets traders the following year.
The firm now has a dozen dedicated cryptocurrency traders on staff and buys and sells millions in digital assets each year.
With investor interest growing, Susquehanna plans to open trading to 500 of its clients and expand soon after. With 1800 employees worldwide, Susquehanna has the resources and manpower to be a global force for institutional virtual currency investing.
