Digital assets exchange Bitfinex is looking to increase the security for its institutional clients with Zodia Custody’s Interchange product, continuing the trend of crypto exchanges separating custody from trading.
Following the collapse of FTX last November, centralized cryptocurrency exchanges faced several questions regarding their organizational structures, not least among them the separation of business lines such as trading, financing and custody, akin to how traditional financial firms operate.
Adoption of this business practice in the digital asset industry is likely to be an important tenet of the regulatory oversight that many crypto firms are now seeking.
London-based Zodia Custody, which is owned by multinational bank Standard Chartered (STAN), is one of the firms offering products that would enable exchanges to comply with such rules. Zodia’s Interchange allows clients to keep their assets on its platform, while their holdings are mirrored and available on an exchange for trading.
Bitfinex was subject to one of the most infamous hacks in the history of crypto, which saw 120,000 BTC (worth over $3 billion in today’s prices) stolen in 2016.
