CoinShares, a crypto-asset management company that provides financial products and services for professional investors, revealed on July 29, 2020 that it has joined the Liquid Network, a sidechain-based settlement network developed by Blockstream.
The Liquid Network aims to offer asset issuance capabilities, faster settlement times and transaction “confidentiality” for digital asset traders and exchanges.
As mentioned in a release shared with CI:
“CoinShares Capital Markets will integrate Liquid to enable digital asset trading between Liquid-enabled exchanges, benefitting clients with faster and more efficient services as well as providing interaction with other exchanges and members of the network.”
CoinShares said their team would be offering their input on the development of new network features, in order to address demands in the cryptocurrency market.
CoinShares has reportedly made strategic investments in developing, adopting, and integrating new technologies that aim to enhance and transform capital markets, both via its Capital Markets desk and its Venture strategy.
Last year, CoinShares traded $3 billion of notional volume, and claims that it’s on track to record 3x this volume in 2020.
The CoinShares team believes that market structure innovations such as the Liquid Network will help with driving the growth in trading volumes, and will help develop better trading software which can lead to “fundamental” changes and improvements in how capital markets operate.
Jean-Marie Mognetti, CEO at CoinShares, stated:
“The development of our trading platform has been influenced, since its early days, by our team’s … commodities trading experience. Our goal was to develop a trading environment giving us the agility of a commodity house with the sophistication of an algorithmic trading firm. Our integration with Liquid Network’s technology provides us the opportunity to strengthen our proprietary infrastructure reinforcing our capacity to be in the market 24/7 365 days a year.”
The Liquid Network is operated by its 53 “federated” members – which includes digital currency exchanges, various trading desks, and infrastructure providers. Liquid’s developers claim that there’s no single entity in control of the network, which means there’s also no single point of failure.
Liquid Federation members include Ledger, BitMEX, Bitfinex, and several other platforms and organizations. CoinShares Ventures has reportedly been participating in the Liquid Ventures Initiative which aims to connect firms developing solutions on the network with established blockchain industry investors.
