Financial technology provider TradingScreen announced on August 5 that it has teamed up with Asian digital asset platform OSL to launch OSL Exchange and OSL intelligent Request for Quote (iRFQ) trading services on MARKTS, TradingScreen's digital asset order and execution management system.

With Asian traders accounting for almost 70% of all digital asset trading volumes globally, the partnership aims to facilitate the cross-regional flow of digital asset trading.

And, despite the bursting of the Bitcoin bubble – between October 2017 and October 2018, Bitcoin fell from US$19,378 to US$5,851 – the cryptocurrency asset class has been gaining favour among institutional investors. Almost 80% of investors surveyed by Fidelity Digital Asset Services found the asset class appealing.

As well, traditional multi-asset class hedge funds are dipping their toes into cross-asset arbitrage, says Alexanddre Carteau, head of MARKTS at TradingScreen, driving the demand for digital asset trading.

The MARKTS-OSL trading service allows investors to trade cryptocurrencies, stocks, derivatives, fixed income and FX on one single screen across region, offering Asian liquidity to US and European customers, while servicing clients in Asia.

“Crypto is getting more and more regulated as an asset class on its own,” Carteau notes. “Many countries have allowed banks to buy, sell, store digital assets. It is becoming an indispensable asset, that should be part of any manager’s asset class mix.”