This past Monday, the European online bank, Swissquote, announced that is would add four cryptocurrencies to its online trading service.
Back in July, the Swiss banking group struck a partnership with Bitstamp, opening up EUR and USD trading pairs with Bitcoin for its clients. Bitstamp’s CEO Nejc Kodrič hailed the partnership as,
a leap forward in terms of integrating Bitcoin with the traditional financial industry.”
Now, it looks as though cryptocurrencies have made a leap and a bound further with Swissquote’s recent announcement, as the bank has implemented Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Ripple to its trading pairs. Each coin is coming off a November and December bullrun,with Swissquote citing customer demand and high liquidity as their primary reasons for their selection.
“Our Bitcoin trading offer and certificate have been a big success and exceeded our expectations,” says Swissquote CEO Marc Bürki. “We are expanding our offer to help investors diversify in cryptocurrencies, just like they do in traditional securities.”
Institutional Interest on the Rise
Swissquote’s expansion of trading pairs comes amidst a wave of attention from traditional financial sectors towards cryptocurrency markets.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange had its inaugural trading day for Bitcoin futures this past Sunday, December 17th. In its first hour, CME’s futures traded for just over $20,000. This comes just a week after the Chicago Board Options Exchange launched their own futures. Meanwhile, NASDAQ and Cantor Fitzgerald also plan to launch futures commodities in 2018.
And the list doesn’t end there. Outside of the US, German exchange Deutsche Boerse is debating the prospect of launching futures, and in Japan, the Tokyo Financial Exchange is planning the same in the new year.
All of this institutional interest parallels cryptocurrency’s march into mainstream public attention. Two weeks ago, Coinbase became the most popular application on Apple’s app store.
As more financial hubs adopt cryptocurrencies into their platforms and derivatives, it’s bound to feed public interest.
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