Digital Currency Group Pulls the Plug on its Institutional Trading Platform

Dig­i­tal Cur­ren­cy Group, the par­ent com­pa­ny of cryp­to lender Gen­e­sis, is shut­ting down Trade­Block, its trad­ing plat­form that catered to insti­tu­tion­al clients, on May 31.

The deci­sion to sun­set the trad­ing plat­form was made due to over­all eco­nom­ic con­di­tions, an extend­ed cryp­to win­ter and the com­plex reg­u­la­to­ry land­scape sur­round­ing dig­i­tal assets in the US, Bloomberg report­ed, cit­ing a DCG spokesperson. 

Block­works has reached out for comment.

In ear­ly 2021, Coin­Desk, a sub­sidiary of DCG, acquired Trade­Block to lever­age its ref­er­ence rates, trad­ing tools, and work­flow sys­tems. Coin­Desk inte­grat­ed the index­ing busi­ness and spun out the remain­ing oper­a­tions as the Trade­Block trad­ing platform.

TradeBlock’s plat­form was designed with a focus on APIs, allow­ing insti­tu­tions to sim­pli­fy their cryp­to asset trad­ing work­flows. It offered solu­tions for pre-trade activ­i­ties, trade exe­cu­tion and post-trade processes.

Dig­i­tal Cur­ren­cy Group (DCG), a com­pa­ny that owns var­i­ous promi­nent cryp­to firms, has been embroiled in con­tro­ver­sy recent­ly. The company’s trans­ac­tions were said to be under scruti­ny, and some of its sub­sidiaries seem to be fac­ing difficulties.

Gen­e­sis offi­cial­ly filed for bank­rupt­cy pro­tec­tion along with its sub­sidiaries in Jan­u­ary after freez­ing with­drawals a few months earlier.

In a sep­a­rate instance, Gem­i­ni co-founder Cameron Win­klevoss urged DCG’s board to oust Sil­bert, mak­ing fraud alle­ga­tions against DCG and its port­fo­lio com­pa­ny Gen­e­sis. The alle­ga­tions includ­ed mak­ing false state­ments and mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions regard­ing Genesis’s sol­ven­cy and finan­cial well-being.

DCG failed to ful­fill its $630 mil­lion debt oblig­a­tion to Gem­i­ni, last week, prompt­ing Gem­i­ni to grant DCG 30 days to come up with the funds dur­ing mediation.

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