FalconX Acquires 21Shares, Expanding Into Crypto ETFs Market

FalconX has announced an acquisition of 21Shares, combining prime brokerage infrastructure with the world’s largest crypto ETP ￰0￱ Pushes Into Crypto ETFs & ETPs With 21Shares Acquisition As announced in a press release , FalconX has agreed to acquire ￰1￱ is an institutional crypto prime brokerage that provides large clients with deep global liquidity, derivatives, financing, custody, and settlement across digital asset ￰2￱ has facilitated over $2 trillion in trading volume and hosts a global client base of more than 2,000 institutions. Meanwhile, 21Shares is the largest issuer of crypto exchange-traded funds and products (ETFs/ETPs). ETFs/ETPs refer to investment vehicles that allow investors to gain exposure to an underlying asset without directly having to own ￰3￱ a trader invests into one of these vehicles, the provider buys and custodies the asset on their ￰4￱ investors may be wary of navigating crypto exchanges and wallets, so products like ETFs and ETPs provide for a more regulated means of investment into digital assets, in a mode that’s more familiar. 21Shares has 55 of these products listed currently, across which it manages over $11 billion in ￰5￱ the acquisition, its asset management product development and distribution capabilities will be combined with FalconX’s institutional-grade ￰6￱ press release noted: Together, the two firms will accelerate the creation of tailored investment products that meet growing institutional and retail demand for regulated digital asset ￰7￱ FalconX is acquiring 21Shares, the latter will continue to operate independently, with Russell Barlow, its current CEO, remaining in ￰8￱ will work closely with FalconX leadership to advance a shared vision for the digital asset ecosystem.

“No changes to the construction or investment objectives of the existing 21shares ETPs (Europe) or ETFs (US) are planned,” said the press ￰9￱ some other news, the Bitcoin derivatives landscape has been changing recently, as on-chain analytics firm Glassnode has highlighted in an X post . Previously, the Futures market was dominant, but now the Options market is beginning to rival it in terms of Open ￰10￱ Open Interest here is naturally a measure of the total amount of positions related to the crypto that are currently open on all derivatives exchanges. First, here is a chart that shows the trend in this metric for the Futures market: As displayed in the above graph, the Bitcoin Futures Open Interest saw peaks above $20 billion in the 2021 bull market and recently reached a high of about $50 ￰11￱ Options Open Interest couldn’t even break $15 billion in the last cycle, but today its 7-day moving average (MA) value is floating around a new all-time high (ATH) of more than $55 ￰12￱ the analytics firm has explained, Markets are shifting toward defined-risk and volatility strategies, meaning options flows, rather than futures liquidations, are becoming a more influential force in shaping price ￰13￱ Price At the time of writing, Bitcoin is floating around $107,800, down over 4% in the last 24 hours.