Mercari Derivatives Exchange, a regulated Australian derivatives exchange market operator, has selected Switzerland-based METACO to provide digital asset custody technology. In a company statement, Mercari noted that it is deploying its technology on IBM Cloud leveraging the capabilities of IBM’s digital asset infrastructure.
This past January, Mercari launched the Mercari DAR Crypto Reference Rates, the first local and robust AUD crypto-asset benchmarks for the Australian and Asia markets.
Mercari will use METACO’s digital asset custody and orchestration platform, Harmonize, facilitating the trading, settlement, and storage of digital assets. With the implementation, Mercari is said to be able to scale to millions of wallets while maintaining control over private keys for risk management and ensuring that keys are securely stored on local infrastructure in Australia.
Patrick Enjalbal, Managing Director APAC at METACO, said that Australia is a growing hub for digital assets in APAC with regulators recently setting out a crypto policy roadmap on the asset class.
“We’re proud to partner with Mercari, a regulated and innovative exchange, to support engagement with the asset class in Australia. Our platform, Harmonize, provides institutional-grade security and governance for the custody of crypto-assets while ensuring the requisite flexibility and agility for innovators like Mercari to go to market and scale quickly.”
Brian Price, director of Mercari said that as a leading regulated derivatives marketplace they recognize that “when the legislative frameworks both in Australia and internationally are ultimately settled there will be a requirement for new and structurally appropriate institutional product solutions for the crypto class of assets.”
Price added that without high-grade institutional digital asset custody the industry will struggle to attract wide-based internal compliance and regulatory support.
Mercari has been licensed as an electronic derivatives exchange since 2005.