Galaxy Digital Holdings has acquired two cryptocurrency trading firms: DrawBridge Lending (DrawBridge), an specialist in digital asset lending, borrowing, and structured products, and Blue Fire Capital (Blue Fire), a proprietary trading firm specialising in market-making and two-sided liquidity for digital assets.DrawBridge and Blue Fire are both pioneers in applying their teams’ institutional expertise in traditional lending, structured products, futures, and market-making to the rapidly growing cryptocurrency derivatives and lending space.
“Galaxy Digital’s mission is to bring cryptocurrency to traditional finance and vice versa. DrawBridge and Blue Fire’s market-leading capabilities will enable us to further amplify our strong position as a go-to trading desk in digital assets and more rapidly grow our innovative portfolio of trading products and services,” says Christopher Ferraro, President of Galaxy Digital. “Furthermore, these acquisitions bring in two exceptional and experienced teams who will play key roles in managing and expanding our business in the years to come.”
Galaxy Digital Trading (GDT) operates a 24-hour global trading model and provides institutional clients and counterparties with a broad range of trading strategies. It currently trades over USD4 billion of OTC volume annually with nearly 200 active counterparties globally. 2020 has seen a broad institutional recognition of cryptocurrency use cases by investors, corporates, regulators, and governments, and as a result GDT has seen a significant increase in institutional demand for cryptocurrency-related financial products and services.
Michael Novogratz, Founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital, says: “Institutional investors and corporates are becoming more knowledgeable and comfortable with digital assets and they are increasingly grasping the purpose and importance of cryptocurrency in their investment strategies. We are looking forward to seamlessly integrating DrawBridge and Blue Fire into Galaxy Digital Trading and strategically leveraging our world-class team, technology and solutions to help further meet what we believe will be an even bigger wave of institutional demand.”
“Over the past two and a half years the Galaxy Digital Trading team has been executing on a product and technology roadmap that has allowed for first-class execution, deep liquidity and an expanding set of services across spot and derivatives, including principal, agency and electronic trading,” said Peter Wisniewski, Co-Head of Galaxy Digital Trading. “These acquisitions are a continuation of this progress to date, and an important milestone as we continue to broaden our talent base and build out our differentiated capabilities, spanning fiat and digital asset lending, structured products, and prime brokerage services.”