Genesis Trading buys the crypto-custody company Vo1t

The digital currency trading and lending agency Genesis Global Trading is moving towards a prime-brokerage service with the acquisition of the Vo1t crypto-deposit, it announced on May 21.

The project to become prime broker

The New York-based trading company acquired Vo1t to begin developing a full suite of prime brokerage services, including loans, negotiation and custody. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

"We are getting there after having a successful business in the trading and lending industry," said Genesis CEO Michael Moro. "The goal is that customers can do any business with Genesis."

In traditional finance, prime brokerage refers to a set of specialized services offered by investment banks and securities traders to their hedge fund clients. This is the first time that Genesis has revealed its strategy to become a prime broker.

Moro did not comment on the number of liquidity providers that Genesis is trying to connect. "The answer is as many as possible that we can support," he said. "We are trading around $ 1 billion in cryptocurrencies a month and clearly we have enough liquidity to allow us to trade so much."

Genesis also announced plans to offer a derivatives trading desk soon, which would begin with over-the-counter bitcoin options. He is also interested in providing an introduction of capital for family offices that are looking for crypto-hedge funds that have the strategies, fee structure and exposure of assets suitable to meet their investment needs.

After New York, London …

Vo1t will also be Genesis' first London office. The company provides safekeeping, lending, staking and trading products for 35 digital assets. Since 2017, Vo1t has been offering cold storage services to companies listed on the Financial Times stock exchange, to trust companies and other financial institutions around the world. The withdrawal time for cold storage assets that is reported is 45 minutes.

Moro started pursuing an agreement with Vo1t last fall after seeing how many services the startup team had produced with few resources. Companies are now in the process of integrating products. "There is a lot of work to be done to absorb this platform and their technology," he said.

… and Singapore

Genesis plans to expand to Singapore after registering with the Singapore monetary authority and will send its employees from New York to the new office once it is safe to do so.

With 30-40% of the company's lending activities from Asia, the office will offer Genesis greater flexibility to serve customers in the region. "Having New York, London and Singapore helps in different time zones," said Moro. "Especially since cryptocurrencies are traded 24 hours a day … and our clientele is diverse in Europe, Asia and the United States"