Wall Street Is Buying Crypto’s Plumbing, Not Its Ideology

BitMEX, the exchange that launched crypto’s first perpetual futures contract, will close on September 23 after 11 years. BitMart, another crypto exchange, plans to wind down by January, according to Jean-Marie Mognetti, CoinShares co-founder, president and CEO. Key Takeaways: - BitMEX, BitMart, Movement Labs and Storj are all closing or filing for bankruptcy this year. - Hyperliquid now gets 54% of its trading volume from stocks and commodities, not crypto. - CoinShares points to Nasdaq-listed, SEC-registered BRRR and BTF as regulated crypto access. Movement Labs, the developer behind the Movement blockchain network, and Storj, which runs a decentralized cloud storage service, both filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection the same week, Mognetti wrote in a recent report. Mognetti calls this a sorting, not a collapse. Blockchain was never going to replace the financial system, he wrote, only its back-end plumbing, and banks are now the ones building on top of it. For investors, that means bitcoin and other crypto exposure is increasingly moving into regulated ETFs, not unlicensed exchanges. Consider Hyperliquid, one of the largest decentralized derivatives exchanges. For the first time, real-world assets, not crypto, made up 54% of its trading volume, about $26 billion, Mognetti wrote. Single stocks accounted for 61% of that volume, led by SK Hynix, the Korean semiconductor maker, not a token. CME Group Inc. (CME) and Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (CBOE) continue to expand their crypto product lines. Crypto platforms are also increasingly listing stocks, ETFs, and commodities so investors can trade around the clock, according to Mognetti. See more: DIME Taps Solana’s Role in Prediction Market Boom Banks Build Out Their Own Crypto Rails JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) has processed more than $4 trillion in transactions on its Kinexys platform since launch. Daily volume now averages more than $7 billion across eight currencies, Mognetti wrote. BlackRock, Inc. (BLK)’s tokenized Treasury fund has surpassed $2.5 billion in assets across eight blockchains. This year, it also became tradable on Uniswap and accepted as collateral on Binance, according to Mognetti. The largest U.S. banks are also building a shared tokenized deposit network through The Clearing House, an industry-owned payments group, Mognetti wrote. Regulation is helping decide who owns that plumbing, Mognetti wrote. The European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, known as MiCA, ended its transition period July 1. Thousands of unlicensed providers then had to stop serving European customers. The U.S. is moving through a similar filter with the Clarity Act, a bill that would set rules for digital assets inside the regulated financial system. For investors, the CoinShares Bitcoin ETF (BRRR) and the CoinShares Bitcoin and Ether ETF (BTF) offer regulated exposure to bitcoin and ether. Both trade on Nasdaq and are registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That’s the same kind of oversight MiCA and the Clarity Act are extending to the rest of the industry. For more news, information, and strategy, visit the CoinShares Crypto ETF Hub.