Digital Currency Group closes prime brokerage subsidiary

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Digital Currency Group (DCG) has said that it will be shutting down its trade execution and prime brokerage division known as TradeBlock. The company attributed the closure of this subsidiary to concerns about the broader economy and an uncertain regulatory climate for digital assets in the United States.

Digital Currency Group closes prime brokerage subsidiary

Digital Currency Group has said that it will commence the shutdown process for the subsidiary on May 3, according to a report by Bloomberg. The platform has said that the extended crypto winter triggered this decision.

“Due to the state of the broader economy and prolonged crypto winter, along with the challenging regulatory environment for digital assets in the US, we made the decision to sunset the institutional trading platform side of the business,” a spokesperson from the DCG said.

TradeBlock is a platform that was created in 2011. The platform was created by Jaron Lukasiewicz and Paul Simos. The platform has become increasingly popular because of supporting features such as crypto price indexes, trading platforms, and analytics tools that make the trading experience easier.

TradeBlock was acquired by CoinDesk, a crypto news publication, in 2021. CoinDesk is also a subsidiary of the Digital Currency Group. However, following the acquisition, CoinDesk only maintained the index data business, and it later rebranded it into CoinDesk Indices. The other units were later spun off as standalone trading businesses.

Digital Currency Group faces many challenges

The closure of the prime brokerage subsidiary comes at a time when the Digital Currency Group has been facing many challenges. The bearish conditions across the cryptocurrency market that have lasted for the better part of the past year have challenged DCG’s operations as the firm was also exposed to the other crypto firms that collapsed and filed for bankruptcy last year.

In January, the Digital Currency Group announced that it would shut down its wealth-management division. Earlier this year, Genesis, a crypto lending unit that is also owned by Digital Currency Group, also filed for bankruptcy. Digital Currency Group was founded by Barry Silbert, who is also the Chief Executive.

Genesis filed for bankruptcy in New York earlier this year. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings that were filed by the company included Genesis Global Holdco and its two lending divisions known as Genesis Global Capital and Genesis Asia Pacific.

The woes facing DCG have led to estimated losses of more than $1 billion last year alone, according to a statement released by the group. The majority of these losses were largely caused by exposure to the crypto hedge fund known as Three Arrows Capital.

The Digital Currency Group has also been engaged in a tussle with the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange owned by the Winklevoss twins. During the bankruptcy filing, Genesis greed to an exit plan where it would repay a $765.9 million loan owned to Gemini. However, the bankrupt Genesis lending unit missed to make a $630M loan repayment, which led to Gemini considering a forbearance option against DCG.

About Ali Raza PRO INVESTOR

Ali is a professional journalist with experience in Web3 journalism and marketing. Ali holds a Master's degree in Finance and enjoys writing about cryptocurrencies and fintech. Ali’s work has been published on a number of leading cryptocurrency publications including Capital.com, CryptoSlate, Securities.io, Invezz.com, Business2Community, BeinCrypto, and more.