For those who remember, 2019 was all about the rise of ‘the institutional-grade platform’.
As the crypto winter drew to a close, a number of exchanges including Bakkt, ErisX, and AAX started attracting attention. At the same time, the more established exchanges rapidly started expanding their services and product offerings.
The narrative went that as the crypto market matured and regulation came in place, institutional investors would seek exposure to Bitcoin. To be able to cater to this capital-heavy investment community, it was critical to professionalize the exchange business and go from a kind of crypto playground or madhouse to a compliant and trusted investment hub. (Instead, much of the familiar madness was relocated to the DeFi-space).
During this time, we also saw developments around custody (e.g. Fidelity Digital Assets Services), mainstream stablecoins (Facebook’s Libra, Central Bank Digital Currencies), and derivatives trading, with BitMex dominating the space for some time.
Now, at the end of 2020, especially since witnessing the steady recovery of Bitcoin after the market crash back in March, we can see this narrative playing out, and one exchange that seems to be riding the wave best has been AAX, the institutional-grade derivatives exchange.
Celebrating the Birth of a Star
In November 2019, the exchange officially went live, notably celebrating their launch event at London Stock Exchange. The exchange is known for being powered by LSEG Technology, a powerful piece of order matching technology, also used by the London Stock Exchange.
Since November, despite difficult macro-economic circumstances, AAX has steadily grown and risen in the rankings. Within a year, as Thor Chan, AAX’s CEO points out, the exchange has attracted over half a million users – most of whom joined in the past few months.
In terms of trade volume, AAX has seen rapid growth over the past few months. Whereas in early August daily trade volumes still barely exceeded 20 million USD a month, trade volume now usually exceeds a few hundred million, with a recent all-time high of 2.4 billion USD. On TokenInsight, AAX ranks 10th in the world for liquidity, 46th on CoinMarketCap, and 27th on ContractMarketCap.
Now to celebrate its one-year anniversary, the exchange has organized a series of lucrative campaigns.
The London Stock Exchange Powered Derivatives Exchange
For those who study the markets, it’s clear that Bitcoin has gathered in strength this year. There is more institutional interest now, with investors such as Paul Tudor stepping into crypto. As the space continues to develop, we should expect more interest in futures trading – not just among retail traders, but especially sophisticated and accredited investors.
AAX seems on its way to leverage its institutional-grade technology and become the exchange of choice for high-frequency futures trading.