Providing the next evolutionary step for handling crypto currencies and all other digital assets, this venture is based in London and will be operated in a regulated manner by an experienced team of financial markets professionals. It will sit alongside existing crypto venues, providing a credible bridge between the Blockchain-centric ‘tech’ community and the traditional institutional space.

Existing crypto trading venues have primarily targeted early adopters and the retail space. The traditional institutional investment community has not been catered for, as this new mostly unregulated and emerging world lacks the systems, controls and processes that they expect for themselves or require for their clients. This space has recently been experiencing rapid growth and institutions now have the appetite to get involved, as well as significant funds at their disposal. As they prepare for market entry, they require appropriate infrastructure for both their technological and regulatory requirements.

The Archax exchange has been designed with these institutions in mind and will help legitimise this new marketplace for them. Built using existing, proven, resilient, scalable, high-performance exchange infrastructure and hosted in top-tier datacentre space, Archax will be operated under stringent regulatory and best practice principles and so provide the surety and transparency that these institutions need. In addition, through partnerships with trading system vendor firms and support for industry standard APIs such as FIX, Archax will be firmly integrated into the existing institutional trading workflow.

Graham Rodford, CEO of Archax, comments: “The current digital asset world is just the beginning. We will increasingly see opportunities emerge as the world realises that all assets can be tokenised. As this occurs, institutions will be looking for a way to realise their investment strategies in both new and traditional ways. We have assembled a seasoned team and advisory board who understand the needs of institutions and who are used to operating in a highly regulated world – people from hedge funds, brokers, banks, exchanges, vendors and the academic space. Crucially, they also have a deep understanding and experience of this new ‘tech’ landscape too, and a vision of how to evolve it to open up existing crypto/digital assets to institutions, as well as pave the way for wider adoption of the technology for other asset classes via tokenisation.”

David Lester, former Chief Strategy Officer of the London Stock Exchange Group and Advisor and Non-Executive Director at Archax, adds: “Tokenisation and Blockchains are innovations that have significant potential to disrupt and open up new business opportunities. Tokens can turn networks into markets, Blockchains can enable more frictionless and transparent marketplaces. How this evolves is of real interest to capital providers, business leaders and founders. I am pleased to be an advisor to Archax, a strong team of likeminded individuals whose mission is to bring global institutional capital to the crypto asset space, which will underpin and accelerate its adoption.”

David Buckley, Chairman of Redwood Bank and Chairman of the Archax Advisory Board, said: “For institutions to get involved in the crypto space, regulations are key. The fact that Archax will operate as if it were regulated and is run by people who understand how the institutional world and traditional exchanges work, means firms will finally get access to new crypto assets in a way that is familiar to them and that provides all the checks, balances and capabilities that they expect.”

Liam Robertson, Founder and CEO of Alphabit, comments: “I am pleased that the Alphabit Fund has a seed investment in this new venture. I am really excited about the opportunity that exists for a genuine institutionally focused crypto exchange and firmly believe that Archax has all the ingredients needed to make this happen.”

The Archax exchange will sit at the very heart of the digital asset trading landscape and provide institutions with the safe trading in safe digital assets with other known safe participants in a safe jurisdiction that they desire.

By bringing in new interest, new liquidity and new investment into existing crypto assets from the institutional space, as well as facilitating the creation of new digital assets too, Archax will become firmly established as the global, institutional, digital asset trading hub.