The regulatory-driven digital asset trading platform, designed by finance veterans and traders, will harness Solidus’ solutions to remove market manipulation, protect investors and comply with regulatory requirements.
August 19, 2020: Solidus Labs, provider of crypto-native market surveillance and risk monitoring solutions, and BlockQuake™, a regulatory-driven digital asset exchange based in New York, announced today they are partnering ahead of the exchange’s upcoming launch. By partnering with Solidus Labs, BlockQuake will be adopting the highest standards of digital asset market surveillance and risk monitoring.
Solidus Labs’ tailored software will allow BlockQuake to proactively detect, investigate and prevent market manipulation and compliance threats, in order to protect the integrity of BlockQuake’s markets. The partnership will help ensure all trading activity on BlockQuake’s platform is legitimate and that its users are protected from suspicious and artificial market activities and manipulation.
Solidus Labs’ solutions are tailored to address traditional market threats, such as wash-trading, pump-and-dump and spoofing, as well as abuse schemes unique to crypto. Crypto-specific concerns include, for example, cross-market and cross-asset manipulation, and fraud associated with account-takeover scams – which have been increasingly afflicting the crypto landscape during the Covid-19 pandemic. Solidus will also assist in bridging regulatory gaps, allowing BlockQuake to satisfy current, and anticipated, governmental requirements for market surveillance and risk monitoring.
Antonio Brasse, CEO, and Co-Founder of BlockQuake™, says:
“We are proud to partner with Solidus Labs to provide BlockQuake’s users with trading activity transparency and maintain the integrity of our regulatory-driven exchange.”
Brasse added:
“Solidus is a true leader in market surveillance and like BlockQuake is built by financial veterans who understand the complexities of the modern digital asset space, even as it rapidly evolves. This partnership puts us at the forefront of global compliance and is integral to protecting our users by operating an exchange that is built on security, transparency, and trust.”
Studies consistently estimate that as much as 90% of crypto trading volume may be subject to manipulative activity. Due to the current lack of high market surveillance standards across the crypto industry, it is difficult to account for the exact amount of funds manipulators are able to swindle from legitimate crypto traders, but the number is estimated at tens of billions of dollars annually – and growing. An analysis by the Wall Street Journal in August 2018, as one example, estimated that pump & dump schemes in crypto markets accounted for $825 million in trading activity in only six months, translating to hundreds of millions of dollars in lost funds.
Market integrity is one of the biggest hurdles to increasing institutional adoption and regulatory approval of digital assets. Citing concerns about high levels of manipulation, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has so far consistently rejected Bitcoin-ETF applications, with Chairman Jay Clayton stating the agency will need to see effective market surveillance. Regulators globally are introducing compliance guidelines and intensifying licensing requirements. Leading agencies like the New York Department of Financial Services, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission and the Malaysia Securities Commission listing detailed requirements for market surveillance and automated risk monitoring.
Asaf Meir, Solidus Labs’ Chief Executive, added:
“Like BlockQuake, Solidus was developed by a team of blue-chip financial veterans who are using over 30 years of financial, compliance, and engineering experience from leading financial institutions to improve the cryptocurrency landscape.”
Meir added:
“It is thanks to exchanges like BlockQuake – which are committed to market integrity, compliance, and user protection in actions and not just words – that the crypto industry is able to continually raise standards and accelerate institutional and mass adoption.”
About BlockQuake
New York City FinTech startup BlockQuake™ is a regulatory-driven, one-stop-shop digital asset trading platform that will support 6 fiat currencies (USD, CAD, GBP, EUR, JPY, AUD) at launch, as well as major cryptocurrencies and stablecoins (e.g. BTC, BCH, ETH, LTC, XRP, XLM, ETC, TUSD, USDT), representing over 90% of the existing markets. Created by a team with over 100 years of collective experience in blue-chip financial services, the BlockQuake™ Exchange aims to be an industry-standard in global compliance. For more information, please visit BlockQuake.com.
About Solidus Labs
Founded in New York in 2017 by Goldman Sachs FinTech veterans, Solidus Labs offers a crypto-native market surveillance platform built from the ground up for the unique compliance challenges of digital assets and crypto data. Harnessing advanced technologies like machine learning and SaaS principles, Solidus Labs’ mission is to help crypto businesses grow faster – and safer – by reducing the operational costs of compliance and minimizing regulatory risk. The firm currently serves a global client base including exchanges, brokerages, regulators, self-regulatory organizations and others.
