Regulated Digital Asset Derivatives Trading

GFO-X ANNOUNCES ABN AMRO CLEARING, IMC, STANDARD CHARTERED BANK AND VIRTU FINANCIAL AS STRATEGIC PARTNERS AHEAD OF LAUNCH IN Q1 2025 London, 9 December 2024: GFO-X announces ABN AMRO Clearing, IMC, Standard Chartered Bank and Virtu Financial as strategic partners ahead of launch in Q1 2025. GFO-X is the UK’s first regulated and centrally cleared trading venue dedicated to digital asset derivatives. GFO-X has been working closely with these partners to deliver the requirements necessary to grow the institutional digital asset index futures and options market. GFO-X provides a cutting-edge trading platform built for institutions, delivering investors a secure and efficient trading environment to seamlessly manage digital asset exposure. The company looks forward to announcing additional exciting partnerships with leading financial institutions in the immediate future. Arnab Sen, CEO and Co-Founder of GFO-X , said, “We are delighted to announce our strategic partners as we drive towards launch in Q1 next year. Their support is a clear and strong endorsement of our vision of the market structure required to deliver digital asset derivatives to large institutional clients. It demonstrates the need for a highly regulated venue to bring additional depth, breadth, and diversification to the current limited choices in centrally cleared digital asset index derivatives. We believe the digital asset derivatives market will grow exponentially over the coming years.” Barry Polak, Lead Product Commerce, ABN AMRO Clearing, said, “We are excited to partner with GFO-X, the UK's first regulated and centrally cleared trading venue dedicated to digital asset derivatives. This strategic collaboration underscores our shared commitment to advancing the institutional digital asset futures and options market. By leveraging LCH DigitalAssetClear's clearing services, we enhance transaction security and minimise counterparty risk, offering our clients unparalleled confidence in trading Bitcoin futures and options. A logical step to continue to lead the way to safe and transparent markets.” Osi Lilian, IMC Strategic Investments Co-Lead , said , “ IMC was proud to be one of the earliest investors in GFO-X in 2021. We aligned with their vision of establishing the UK's first regulated and centrally cleared trading venue for digital asset derivatives, built on secure, high-performance technology and robust risk management . As a market maker, our strategic connection with GFO-X underscores our commitment to the institutional digital asset futures and options market – a rapidly evolving space we believe holds significant potential for continued growth and opportunity.” Andy Ross, Global Head, Prime & Financing, Financing & Securities Service, Standard Chartered , said, “We’re delighted to support the launch of GFO-X derivatives and to join LCH SA as a general clearing member to enable our clients to trade and clear. We continue to invest in servicing our clients broadly across the crypto space in coin, token and derivative form.” “ Virtu makes markets globally and is excited to support new and innovative platforms for digital assets in this role. We see broadening adoption and increasing demand as the crypto markets continue to mature and embrace the risk management benefits and capital efficiencies of centralised clearing.” About GFO-X GFO-X is the UK’s first regulated and centrally cleared trading venue dedicated to digital asset derivatives. Combining proprietary high-performance technology with industry-leading partnerships and infrastructure, GFO-X delivers the requirements necessary to grow the institutional digital asset derivatives market. GFO-X provides comprehensive risk management for transactions in digital asset derivatives through clearing provided by LCH DigitalAssetClear. Backed by M&G Investments and authorised by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in 2022, GFO-X’s regulation-first approach has enabled it to partner with some of the largest financial institutions in the world. GFO-X believes the digital asset futures and options markets will grow exponentially over the coming years as the asset class matures and more sophisticated investors begin to participate in greater size. By solving market constraints such as counterparty risks and technology challenges, GFO-X delivers a robust market structure and innovative products to propel the next leg of growth of the digital asset ecosystem. About ABN AMRO Clearing ABN AMRO Clearing is recognised as a global leading provider of integrated solutions in clearing, execution, custody, financing, and risk management. With 11 offices globally, we are able to service clients on 160+ exchanges, MTFs and FX liquidity centres, processing over 20 million trades daily. ABN AMRO Clearing consistently ranks amongst the top 3 clearing firms on most relevant derivatives exchanges globally. With over 1000 colleagues, and together with our partners and our clients, it is our responsibility to encourage and support sensible and sustainable regulatory frameworks. We use our knowledge and expertise to lead the way to safe and transparent financial ecosystems. About IMC IMC is a leading global trading firm powered by a cutting-edge research environment and a world-class technology backbone. Founded in 1989, IMC employs more than 1,600 talented individuals across offices in Europe, the US, and Asia-Pacific. Its core business is to provide essential liquidity in financial assets on trading venues, and to deliver the best outcome in value and risk to investors. IMC engages in trading activities on its own account and employs advanced algorithms, statistical techniques, and innovative technologies to execute its strategies. IMC Strategic Investments is IMC’s venture capital arm. This entrepreneurial initiative is focused on collaboration, connecting start-ups and scale-ups with IMC’s world-class expertise and financial backing to drive long-lasting value and success across industries specialising in blockchain technology, quantum technology, DevOps, and cloud computing. About Standard Chartered We are a leading international banking group, with a presence in 52 of the world’s most dynamic markets. Our purpose is to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, and our heritage and values are expressed in our brand promise, here for good. Standard Chartered PLC is listed on the London and Hong Kong stock exchanges. For more stories and expert opinions please visit Insights at sc.com. Follow Standard Chartered on X, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. About Virtu Financial, Inc. Virtu is a leading provider of financial services and products that leverages cutting-edge technology to deliver liquidity to the global markets and innovative, transparent trading solutions to its clients. Leveraging its global market making expertise and infrastructure, Virtu provides a robust product suite including offerings in execution, liquidity sourcing, analytics and broker-neutral, multi-dealer platforms in workflow technology. Virtu’s product offerings allow clients to trade on hundreds of venues across 50+ countries and in multiple asset classes, including global equities, ETFs, foreign exchange, futures, fixed income, cryptocurrency and myriad other commodities. In addition, Virtu’s integrated, multi-asset analytics platform provides a range of pre-, intra-, and post-trade services, data products and compliance tools that clients rely upon to invest, trade and manage risk across global markets.