The famous British bank Standard Chartered is preparing to launch its own trading desk to allow institutional clients to invest in Bitcoin and Ethereum through a proprietary platform.
The operations could be initiated in the coming weeks, right in conjunction with the start of trading for Ethereum spot ETFs, with London being chosen as the operational headquarters of the multinational.
Standard Chartered is famous for its optimistic predictions on Bitcoin and the crypto sector in general, having repeatedly offered its bullish vision for the market: will the launch of the trading desk help to lift the quotations from the current bearish sentiment?
Let’s see all the details below.
Standard Chartered ready to inaugurate a trading desk for Bitcoin and Ethereum
According to a recent report by Bloomberg, the well-known British bank Standard Chartered is organizing to soon launch a trading desk for Bitcoin and Ethereum, that is, a virtual platform where authorized operators can trade the buying and selling of digital products with underlying BTC and ETH.
As revealed by sources close to the matter, the company is expected to officially present the news in the coming weeks, and will select the London headquarters as the central hub for operations reserved for institutional clients.
We remind you that Standard Chartered is a universal bank that offers various types of services to individuals, businesses, and governments around the world: although it operates mainly from Great Britain, 90% of its profits come from other foreign branches.
A trading Desk on Bitcoin and Ethereum could therefore open the doors to high-level investments in the cryptographic sector from stock exchanges around the world (with a focus in Asia), and not only on the European front.
As written, in fact, verbatim by the bank in a statement via e-mail conveyed by Bloomberg:
“We have worked closely with our regulators to support the demand of our institutional clients to trade bitcoin and Ethereum, in line with our strategy of supporting clients through the broader digital asset ecosystem, from access and custody to tokenization and interoperability.”
The news represents just the tip of the iceberg of a proactive activity towards the crypto and blockchain world by Standard Chartered, which already today offers OTC trading and custody services of digital assets at Zodia Markets and Zodia Custody.
Additionally, in November it launched a blockchain unit called Libeara to assist institutions in the tokenization of real-world assets using the Singapore dollar as the underlying asset.
To highlight, for about a year now the London bank has been expressing its clearly bullish views on both Bitcoin and Ethereum, boasting optimistic predictions for the future of the sector.
In particular, the latest forecasts from Standard Chartered have described an evolution of prices for BTC that could result in reaching $100,000 by the end of the year, and possibly $150,000 if Donald Trump were to win the presidential elections.
For Ethereum, the bank has predicted growth up to 8,000 dollars by the end of the year if the ETFs have a positive outcome.
Weak cryptocurrency market awaiting the launch of Ethereum ETFs
Waiting for the launch of the trading desk in London for Standard Chartered, the cryptocurrency market appears particularly weak, with Bitcoin and Ethereum down both in the last 7 days and in the last month.
Today the start of the week does not seem to foresee a reversal of course since the news of the release of Mt. Gox payments has led to a further decline in most digital assets.
The fear of investors for a 9 billion dollar sell-off has led Bitcoin to lose the 61,000 dollar mark while on the Ethereum front, the 3,300 dollars have been broken downwards.
For altcoins, the situation seems even more bloody, with several coins like NOT, ORDI, ARK, ZK, UNI, and MKR recording double-digit percentage drops on a daily basis.
Yesterday the liquidations of the futures markets involved more than 90,000 traders, leading to the evaporation of over 140 million dollars. In the last 24 hours, according to Coinglass data, long liquidations rise to 260 million dollars, while short liquidations stand at just 25 million dollars.
It really seems that the bears are maintaining control of the market at this moment.
The launch of the ETF spot of Ethereum with the approval of the S-1 documents, and the subsequent inclusion of the investment instrument in the trading desk of Standard Chartered, could revive the market’s fortunes bringing the situation back to a more positive condition.
According to Eric Balchunas, ETF analyst at Bloomberg, after asset managers reviewed their registration documents with the SEC, the expected date for the start of Ethereum trading on Wall Street is July 2, provided that there are still no official dates.
Just as happened with the launch of Bitcoin ETFs, the result for Ethereum ETFs could also be an upward push for the entire crypto market, enough to overturn the current bearish sentiment.
Next step: we will see a bunch of amended S-1s filed today, prob later this afternoon. Then ball's in SEC's court to let issuers know about any final changes and effectiveness (aka final approval). We holding the line with July 2nd as our over/under for eth ETFs launch date. https://t.co/EmqCVsE0Qe
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) June 21, 2024
In the midst of this delicate outlook, the dominance of Bitcoin remains particularly high at 55%, up by about 38 percentage points compared to the values of November 2022 when the index was at its local lows.
The more Bitcoin incorporates market shares, the more there will be room for a bull movement of altcoins if the adequate market conditions are met.
For now, the trend seems to be organically upward, with values firmly above the weekly EMA 50. Indicatively, when we go below 50%, we might observe the first bullish movements of the alternative coins, including Ethereum.