Jamie Pielock, Head of Sales at EDX Markets was recently interviewed by Benzinga.
EDX is a digital asset marketplace designed to meet the needs of crypto-native firms and the world’s largest financial institutions. The exchange has backing from leading names in finance – including retail brokers, global market makers, and venture capital firms like Citadel Securities, Fidelity Digital Assets, Virtu Financial, Sequoia, and Paradigm.
EDX is a digital asset marketplace designed to meet the needs of crypto-native firms and the world’s largest financial institutions. The exchange has backing from leading names in finance – including retail brokers, global market makers, and venture capital firms like Citadel Securities, Fidelity Digital Assets, Virtu Financial, Sequoia, and Paradigm.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Hi there, something that we love to do here at Benzinga is to talk to executives from
00:06 publicly and privately held companies.
00:07 And we've got a great conversation here today with Jamie Pielock, who is the head of sales
00:12 for EDX Markets.
00:13 Jamie, thank you so much for joining me.
00:16 Thank you for having me.
00:17 Pleasure to be here.
00:18 You know, so much conversation is going around the crypto space.
00:20 I'm glad you and I get a chance to have this one on one.
00:22 But before we get to look under the hood, give me a brief overview of what is it that
00:26 your company does.
00:27 EDX Markets is a new digital asset market, which we launched with backing from Citadel
00:33 Securities, Virtu Financial, Fidelity Digital Assets, Charles Schwab and Sequoia Capital.
00:40 Our goal is to introduce best practices from traditional finance into the cryptocurrency
00:45 market.
00:46 We believe that investors and traders in the digital asset market, the global digital asset
00:51 market should benefit from the same values and standards of competition, transparency,
00:58 fairness and safety that investors in traditional asset classes expect and enjoy, but often
01:04 take for granted.
01:05 So through EDX, we offer a non-custodial, high performance marketplace coupled with
01:11 a spot clearinghouse.
01:12 EDX clearing allows for all trading on EDX markets to face a single counterparty with
01:18 daily settlement on a netted basis.
01:21 So this makes trading on EDX safer, faster and more efficient.
01:26 Now you just mentioned so many things that I want to dive into, but let's start with
01:29 the fact that you are relatively new with the launch of your clearinghouse only a few
01:33 months ago, I believe.
01:35 How's it going so far?
01:37 It's been a very exciting period of growth since the launch of our clearinghouse in October.
01:41 EDX members have now executed and cleared over $4.3 billion in total notional volume.
01:48 In January alone, our members executed and cleared $2 billion in notional and our February
01:53 numbers are off to a great start.
01:56 This speaks to the growth we're experiencing month over month.
02:00 But what's evident is that there is real demand from both institutions and retail intermediaries
02:07 for a centrally cleared market.
02:09 We expect our membership and volumes to continue to grow given the strength of our active pipeline
02:15 and onboarding queue.
02:16 Yeah, I love the growth there month over month, the numbers you mentioned, especially with
02:19 February being off to a great start.
02:21 Let's talk about your competitors and what kind of gives you the edge, right?
02:24 So how does EDX differ from some of the legacy crypto exchanges already out there?
02:29 What's like the main value that you're hoping to bring to the marketplace?
02:33 I'd say there are five main things that differentiate us from our competition.
02:38 First we're focused on providing competitive pricing and deep liquidity through a pure
02:42 market and clearinghouse model.
02:44 EDX's members benefit from a competitive noncustodial market without the need for bilateral trading
02:51 agreements.
02:52 Our customers can access every quote on our platform without having to pre-fund their
02:57 trading and without EDX acting as their custodian.
03:01 Secondly, EDX's model allows our members to store their crypto with their own chosen custodian.
03:08 Again, our customers do not need to pre-fund trading accounts.
03:12 This is compared to the pre-funded Omnibus custody model of many existing vertically
03:18 integrated crypto exchanges.
03:20 Next, EDX significantly reduces counterparty credit and settlement risk for its members
03:27 by functioning as a central counterparty.
03:30 Customers who trade OTC face direct credit risk from multiple counterparties and EDX
03:35 helps to eliminate this.
03:37 Furthermore, all trades matched on our marketplace settle through EDX clearing in a single net
03:43 settlement process, which increases operational efficiency and reduces the upfront capital
03:50 required to trade and settle.
03:52 Our members' back offices only need to manage one counterparty to settle against rather
03:57 than multiple daily settlements when trading OTC.
04:00 And finally, our members benefit from aggregated all-to-all liquidity from some of the world's
04:06 largest market makers.
04:07 So what's important here is that we've stripped out potential conflicts of interest and have
04:11 simultaneously layered in the risk mitigation and the capital plus operational efficiencies
04:18 that come with centralized clearing.
04:20 This largely replicates the models used in traditional asset class execution and clearing.
04:26 Yeah, you gave five great advantages.
04:28 My favorite one might be the last one when it comes to liquidity.
04:31 And you mentioned risk, so I promise we'll get to that.
04:34 But at the top of this interview, you talked about the big players that are backing you,
04:37 right?
04:38 So you've got your Citadel, you've got Fidelity, you've got Charles Schwab, Sequoia, and many
04:42 others as well.
04:43 What does it mean for you to be backed by such big names in this space?
04:48 It certainly means a lot from a financial and leadership perspective, but more importantly,
04:52 it shows that traditional firms are interested in trading digital assets in a fair, transparent,
04:58 and safe way.
05:00 Their support in backing EDX shows that institutional grade technology and market structure is needed
05:06 for digital asset trading.
05:08 We've built EDX to offer many of the features prevalent in traditional asset class trading.
05:14 This includes advanced risk management, fixed drop copies, the ability for market makers
05:19 to co-locate for improved quoting, and a retail only quote to provide retail platforms the
05:26 most competitive price.
05:28 The successful launch of our clearinghouse is again a testament to the institutional
05:33 demand for increased post-trade efficiencies, namely the netting of settlement obligations
05:39 while facing a single counterparty.
05:41 Now I promised to get back to the risk aspect of it, so let me do just that.
05:45 How does EDX return trust to the marketplace, especially with y'all being new and especially
05:50 after what we all live through in terms of FTX?
05:54 Trust is a big part of our ethos and vision.
05:57 We've specifically structured EDX to not engage in conflicting businesses such as custody,
06:04 direct retail services like trading, or prime brokerage and lending services.
06:08 These are products and services you often see at crypto exchanges.
06:13 The problem is that offering, say, markets, custody, and lending all under one roof can
06:19 lead to conflicts of interest, FTX being the biggest example of what can go wrong with
06:23 this type of business structure.
06:25 Additionally, the foundation of our clearinghouse is a default fund.
06:30 Unlike settlement networks or OTC trading, EDX has added an additional layer of protection
06:35 for its members.
06:37 We have capitalized a default fund that is available throughout our daily settlement
06:41 process in the event that any of our members default on their settlement obligation.
06:46 This ensures a smooth settlement within our own ecosystem.
06:50 And these are just some of the specifics that we've been extra thoughtful about in context
06:54 of where the crypto trading landscape can mature and bring trust and protections back
07:00 to the market.
07:01 I'm glad to hear that there's a plan B, C, and D in case something goes wrong.
07:06 But you talked about the impressive month-over-month numbers.
07:08 Let's talk about the rest of 2024 because you had a recent announcement of your Series
07:13 B funding and your international expansion as well.
07:16 What's down the pipeline?
07:17 What can I expect for the remainder of 2024?
07:20 We continue to be focused on capturing market share through our US-based spot business.
07:24 We also see opportunities internationally to add new products and new assets for trading
07:30 that we can't currently list in the US.
07:32 This means a spot market with a more extensive list of tokens and expanding into derivatives,
07:38 such as perpetual futures contracts.
07:40 We will base the international operation in Singapore.
07:43 Singapore is a leading hub for crypto already.
07:46 It's known for thoughtful regulation and has an active crypto community.
07:51 Our Series B was raised with this initiative at its core.
07:54 We believe there's strong demand in Asia and beyond for EDX's market model, which is focused
08:00 on competition, transparency, fairness, and efficiency.
08:04 And we're really looking forward to this next phase of growth.
08:06 Well, hey, you've got the month-over-month impressive numbers.
08:09 You're backed by big players like Charles Schwab, Citadel, Fidelity, and Sequoia, and
08:13 many others.
08:14 Thank you so much for the conversation.
08:15 That is Jamie P. Locke, who's the Head of Sales at EDX Markets.
08:20 Thank you.
08:26 [BLANK_AUDIO]