A new federally regulated exchange designed to trade virtual currency is one step closer to becoming a reality.
Paul Chou, a former Goldman Sachs trader is readying LedgerX, a fully regulated Bitcoin derivatives exchange and clearing house. While at Goldman, he was responsible for developing, trading and risk managing algorithmic equity trading strategies for U.S. and Japanese markets. Also, he developed a set of cross-asset strategies and devised a method to unify and optimize the trade flow across hundreds of trading algorithms.
Prior to Goldman, Chou delivered trading and spread-risk tracking tools on projects for Citadel Investment Group and Morgan Stanley.
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Chou, chief executive officer of LedgerX, is designing the exchange and currently has filed registration papers, bringing the bourse one step closer to reality. LedgerX’s registration, filed with the CFTC, is open for public comment until Friday, January 30th. On December 15th, the CTFC requested comments on the LedgerX submission.
If approved by the CFTC, LedgerX would be the first federally regulated Bitcoin options platform and clearing house to list and clear fully-collateralized, physically-settled Bitcoin options for the institutional market. LedgerX has also applied for registration with the CFTC as a swap execution facility and as a derivatives clearing organization on September 29, 2014.
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LedgerX is backed by several high profile investors such as Google Ventures and LightSpeed Ventures. Also, Jim Newsome, former chairman of the CFTC and former chief executive of NYMEX, and Tom Lewis, former CEO of both Ameritrade and Green Exchange, currently sit on the LedgerX board of directors.
Chou told Traders that he is currently working with legal, tax, audit, surveillance and technology companies. Simultaneously, to build a Bitcoin derivatives market, he is bringing together corporations seeking to hedge their Bitcoin exposure and financial institutions searching for trading and investing opportunities in Bitcoin.
According to Chou, more than 80,000 entities accept Bitcoin, including brand names such as Dell, Expedia and PayPal.
