SDX and RULEMATCH Partner to Enhance Institutional Crypto Trading

Swiss Digital Asset exchange SDX and RULEMATCH have announced a partnership aimed at providing an integrated solution for trading, settling, and managing crypto assets. The collaboration is set to offer banks and financial institutions a comprehensive end-to-end platform, addressing key concerns in the digital asset space.

The Swiss-based partnership comes at a time when institutional interest in cryptocurrencies is growing, yet concerns around speed, compliance, and market fragmentation persist. The integrated solution aims to tackle these issues by combining SDX's custody services with RULEMATCH's trading and settlement platform.

A key feature of the offering is the ability for institutions to trade on RULEMATCH's platform with post-trade clearing and settlement, eliminating the need for pre-financing trading activities. Investors will be able to hold crypto assets in SDX's custody and manage clearing collateral on a dedicated SDX account, removing the requirement to hold collateral with the trading venue.

The partnership also promises to address the issue of transaction speed, allowing investors to increase their crypto collateral positions within seconds, potentially avoiding the delays often associated with on-chain transactions. The integrated solution is slated for availability from the fourth quarter of 2024.

David Newns, Head of SIX Digital Exchange, emphasised the importance of the partnership in addressing industry concerns: "Until now, the digital asset space has been held back by concerns around speed, compliance and fragmentation. Our partnership with RULEMATCH tackles these issues head-on by providing transparency, capital efficiency and, crucially, a clear separation of trading and custody roles. This means institutional investors retain full control over their collateral via SDX's custody and can segregate assets by crypto address, ensuring clarity on asset location at all times. As part of SIX, a trusted provider of global financial infrastructure, SDX continues to uphold the highest standards of security and compliance for institutional investors."

David Riegelnig, CEO of RULEMATCH, highlighted the strategic alignment of the partnership: "We have always believed that separating the roles of trading and custody is key to serving financial institutions in the digital assets industry. As a pure market operator, RULEMATCH is thrilled to partner with SDX and integrate its custody services with our trading and settlement platform. And we know from our participants that many of them would love to use a secure, independent custodian like SDX to manage the full lifecycle of their crypto asset holdings, while also leveraging the competitive advantages of trading and settling on RULEMATCH. Thanks to our partnership, they can do exactly that."

SDX, a subsidiary of SIX Group, operates financial market infrastructures for digital assets and is licensed by FINMA, Switzerland's financial market regulator. It runs Switzerland's first and only Central Securities Depository on distributed ledger technology.

RULEMATCH, based in Zurich, positions itself as a premier crypto and digital asset trading venue for financial institutions. It operates as a market operator for spot trading of liquid cryptocurrencies against fiat currencies, with integrated multilateral clearing and post-trade settlement.