A group of former Morgan Stanley executives is launching a crypto derivatives exchange in a move to rival the CME. Phemex, a trading platform that claims to be able to manage 300,000 TPS, is said to be on par with the technical capabilities of the Nasdaq exchange. Phemex’s “low latency system” is said to deliver an order entry and response time of less than 1 millisecond while maintaining stable APIs for algorithmic trading.
Phemex is based in Singapore, a country that is expected to soon allow cryptocurrency-based derivatives to be traded on regulated platforms.
The crypto exchange will be open to both individual and institutional investors offering contracts in BTC, ETH and XRP. Phemex will also offer up to 100X leverage.
As well, Phemex expects to offer more traditional trading in other assets such as commodities, indices and more.
Founded by Jack Tao who previously worked at Morgan Stanley for 11 years, he claims that the trading metrics of Phemex are on par with big banks just like his former employer.
Tao now has a team of 30+ developers, including 8 former executives from Morgan Stanley’s BES and Enterprise Application Infrastructure teams.
Tao claims that their matching/trading engine matches that of the NASDAQ:
“We are the first exchange to truly bring Wall Street level sophistication to the worldwide crypto derivatives markets.”
Phemex wants to target existing market players that have been “plagued by performance and reliability issues, especially during high volume trading periods.”
Phemex also incorporates a “Hierarchical Deterministic Cold Wallet System,” that assigns an independent deposit address to each user, so that all assets are kept in cold wallets directly.
The platform has been in beta for several weeks and is expected to be fully deployed this month.
