By Frank Chaparro DRW, a Chicago-based firm, is looking to set up a bitcoin trading desk in Singapore to dominate the cryptocurrency market in Asia. The firm has been in the bitcoin game since 2014 via its division Cumberland Mining, which already operates over-the-counter bitcoin trading desks in Chicago and London.
Bobby Cho, the head of over-the-counter trading for Cumberland, told Business Insider the firm is preparing to start up operations in Singapore well-before year-end. In China, where retail exchanges have shut down en masse because of a crackdown by the government, the OTC business has exploded.
OTC trading firms like Cumberland connect buyers and sellers off retail exchanges. From the transaction data of the two platforms of LocalBitcoin and Paxful, the share of BTC-CNY over-the-counter trading in its total amount of over-the-counter Bitcoin transactions rose from about five per cent to about 20 per cent.”.
Cho told Business Insider the firm’s strategy isn’t necessarily to dominate China. Sebastian Quinn-Watson, a partner at Blockchain Global, a cryptocurrency exchange operator, told Business Insider he is very bullish on the crypto-market in Asia.
http://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/2119979/us-trading-firm-setting-shop-singapore-dominate-bitcoin
