Another day, another step forward to Bitcoins road to legitimacy. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that market maker Nasdaq will provide trading technology to Noble Markets, the start-up firm that aims to allow hedge funds to trade bitcoin and related digital-currency assets.
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Earlier in the day, news broke that former NYSE CEO Duncan Neiderauer had joined Tera Group, a bitcoin derivatives trading platform and virtual currency bourse. The former head of the Wall Street trading floor will serve as an advisory director for the newish bitcoin firm.
Wall Street is seeing real opportunities in the virtual currency. As the Wall Street Journal cites, The New York Stock Exchange’s investment in bitcoin exchange Coinbase; regulatory approval of public trading in the Digital Currency Group’s Bitcoin Investment Fund; former J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. executive Blyth Masters’ appointment to a lead new digital-asset settlement service…
The CEO of Noble Markets is John Betts who oversaw the development of electronic trading platforms for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and UBS. Betts believes that Nasdaq’s involvement and technology will ease any fears over bitcoin trading in the wake of headlines concerning alleged fraud and a collapse by key players in the bitcoin arena. “They can say, ‘These are sophisticated organizations; they have done their due diligence, and if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for us,” he told the Journal.
The Journal reports that Betts company is backed by venture-capital firms Blockchain Capital of San Francisco and Tally Capital of Chicago.
Betts said that institutions are asking about the trading of bitcoin and have moved beyond asking “What is bitcoin?” He told the Journal that he is now asked “Bitcoin is interesting, but where can we trade?'”
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Betts said, “A lot of them just couldn’t do business with the existing exchanges. But we are a team of investment veterans. We speak their language.”
