A quick overview of EDX Markets' six major partners

Original author: Logicrw, Jaleel, BlockBeats
Last night, EDX Markets, a new cryptocurrency trading platform, announced its official launch and completed a new round of fundraising. The main reason for the heated discussion is that the trading platform is supported by financial giants in the TradFi field, such as Citadel Securities, Fidelity Investments, and Charles Schwab.
The announcement seemed to send huge ripples through the market instantly. This morning, as the EDX Markets platform went online, it supports four mainstream cryptocurrencies that are not recognized as securities by the SEC - Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) ) have experienced significant increases. Among them, Bitcoin broke through the $29,000 mark in a short period of time, with a 24-hour increase of 6.82%. Ethereum’s 24-hour increase also reached 3.41%, and BCH’s 24-hour increase was even more astonishing, with its 24-hour increase soaring to 24.3%.
In this new round of financing, EDX Markets attracted a number of strategic investors in the financial trading industry, including Miami International Holdings (MIH), DV Crypto, GTS, GSR Markets LTD and HRT Technology, among which Miami International Holdings is the most prominent.
New investor: Miami International Holdings
Miami has a favorable policy environment for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, and it plays an important role in the global Bitcoin and cryptocurrency ecosystem. Well-known crypto companies such as FTX US and MoonPay have set up their headquarters here. Although Miami International Holdings (MIH) has "Miami" in its name, it is actually headquartered in New Jersey (with only an office in Miami) and is one of the major options exchanges in the United States.
According to the official website, Miami International Holdings (MIH) was founded in 2007 and mainly operates global financial trading platforms and execution services. The company owns multiple US stock, equity options and commodity exchanges, including the MIAX Exchange Group (consisting of MIAX, MIAX Pearl, MIAX Pearl Equities and MIAX Emerald), and the Minneapolis Grain Exchange (MGEX). In addition, MIH has a subsidiary, Miami International Technologies, which focuses on selling and licensing trading technology developed by the MIAX Exchange Group.
In May this year, Miami International Securities Exchange (MIAX) announced the completion of the acquisition of FTX's derivatives trading platform LedgerX. This move is seen as an important milestone for MIAX to move from traditional finance to digital assets. LedgerX was one of the FTX assets approved for sale by the court in January this year. It was acquired by FTX US in August 2021. LedgerX is a trading and clearing platform regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and is registered with the CFTC as a designated contract market (DCM), derivatives clearing organization (DCO) and swap execution facility (SEF).
But in fact, MIAX had the idea of ​​launching cryptocurrency derivatives earlier. According to the CoinCarp website, Miami International Holdings (MIH) participated in the $110 million E round of financing of crypto data provider Lukka in January 2022. In June of the following year, MIAX announced a strategic alliance with Lukka to jointly develop and launch a set of proprietary crypto derivatives based on Lukka data.
In the strategic planning of Miami International Holdings, the role of digital assets and cryptocurrencies is becoming increasingly prominent. As the cryptocurrency market matures, various financial trading platforms are also constantly looking for innovation and development opportunities related to it. For MIH, investing in EDXM's new round of financing is just another step in its exploration in the field of digital assets. In the future, we can expect to see more attempts by such TradFi giants to combine digital assets and traditional financial products.
Suppliers and partners
In addition to the new investor Miami International Holdings, which received great attention, the six suppliers and partners listed on the EDX Markets official website also aroused heated discussions in the community. They are: stock trading platform MEMX, crypto custodian Anchorage Digital, crypto index provider CF Benchmarks, trading software developer DELTIX, crypto institutional trading platform TALOS, and crypto technology company Elwood.
Stock Trading Platform MEMX
Members Exchange (MEMX) is an independently owned, technology-driven stock trading platform. Founded in early 2019 by BofA Securities, Charles Schwab, Citadel LLC, E-Trade, Fidelity Investments, Morgan Stanley, TD Ameritrade, UBS, and Virtu Financial, the trading platform competes with major stock trading platforms such as the NYSE, Nasdaq, and CBOE.
Since its founding, MEMX has also received investments from nine other financial services firms, including BlackRock, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Jane Street Capital. In May 2020, MEMX received approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to operate as a national securities exchange. In March of this year, MEMX announced the completion of a strategic financing led by Optiver, a leading global market maker, to support the launch of MEMX Options, an options trading platform, in August.
Crypto Custodian Anchorage Digital
Anchorage Digital is a compliant crypto platform founded in 2017, with early investors including a16z and Blockchain Capital. Visa became an investor in Anchorage Digital in 2019 and used the company to provide cryptocurrency payment services. Anchorage Digital Bank received a banking charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in 2021, becoming the first federally chartered cryptocurrency bank in the United States.
Anchorage Digital provides comprehensive financial services and infrastructure solutions for institutions. It is a digital asset custodian for financial institutions such as banks, venture capital firms, fintech companies, and governments. Anchorage Digital uses biometric authentication and hardware security modules to store and protect cryptocurrencies. Anchorage Digital announced in December 2021 that it had completed a $350 million financing round, with a post-investment valuation of $3 billion.
Crypto Index Provider CF Benchmarks
As a wholly owned subsidiary of the crypto trading platform Kraken, CF Benchmarks is a digital asset index service provider authorized and regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). CF Benchmarks covers more than 40 digital assets, and its flagship product is the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR), which is used to settle Bitcoin-USD futures contracts listed by CME Group, as well as the valuation benchmark for Bitcoin by asset management companies around the world. Last September, BlackRock announced that it would use CF Benchmarks' Bitcoin Index pricing product to launch its Bitcoin product.
Trading software developer DELTIX
Founded in 2005 by a group of computer scientists and mathematicians, Deltix is ​​a provider of quantitative research software and services to the financial industry. The company's expertise includes applying complex mathematics to large data sets, helping clients gain actionable insights and conduct "intelligent trading." Deltix's solutions typically involve custom deployments using its advanced product components in a collaborative way with clients.
Deltix's clients include both buy-side and sell-side firms. On the buy-side, Deltix works with hedge funds, commodity trading advisors, professional trading firms, investment management firms, and banks. On the sell-side, Deltix provides algorithmic execution solutions for stocks, futures, and foreign exchange orders to banks and brokers. Deltix's solutions are also used by OTC desks and crypto trading platforms.
Crypto Institutional Trading Platform TALOS
Founded in 2018, New York-based TALOS provides financial institutions with technology that supports digital asset trading. Its platform provides liquidity access, direct market access, price discovery, automated execution, clearing and settlement. Talos provides optimal trading solutions for institutional investors, and its products help customers view prices from trading platforms and market makers in one place and issue instructions for all stages of trading - even complex algorithmic stages.
Talos received a $40 million Series A funding round led by a16z in May 2021, and completed a $105 million Series B funding round in May 2022 at a valuation of $1.25 billion.
Elwood Technologies
Elwood Technologies is a cryptocurrency trading platform founded by Alan Howard, a well-known British hedge fund manager. The company raised $70 million in a Series A round co-led by Goldman Sachs and Dawn Capital last May. Elwood provides a technology platform similar to the Bloomberg Terminal or BlackRock's Aladdin portfolio management system, designed to plug into financial institutions' existing trading software to help them manage and trade cryptocurrency portfolios. In February last year, Elwood Technologies announced a strategic integration with Bloomberg to connect its software to the U.S. trading platform's order management system.