New York-based fintech provider Tassat is partnering with digital asset market maker Blockfills to launch an institutional Trade at Settlement (TAS) product for spot Bitcoin (XBT/USD).
According to a Nov. 18 report by Hedgeweek, Blockfills — which specializes in digital asset electronic market making, trading and prime brokerage — will join forces with Tassat, formerly known as trueDigital to launch the product by mid-December.
New products for crypto traders to hedge risk
TAS is a specific type of electronic order book that enables buyers and sellers to trade at — or close to — a settlement price established during a discrete fixing period.
Widely used in derivatives markets for a range of underlying assets, the model is designed to reduce uncertainty and to eradicate slippage in execution by establishing a determined price for participants to trade around.
TAS developers argue that by contrast, retail spot exchanges are beset with risks and uncertainty associated with price volatility, abrupt price movements and significantly wider spreads.
For the Bitcoin (XBT/USD) TAS product, Tassat’s Bitcoin (BTC) reference rates — constructed from aggregated institutional-size quotes from over ten global over-the-counter digital asset market makers — will underpin the settlement price at each window.
Blockfills’ trading platform infrastructure will be used to manage order flow, matching, execution and settlement of trades.
Tassat’s director of sales Josh Gibson outlined that:
“TAS provides a way to offset the risk of price movements on their futures positions and/or rebalance the gamma on option positions with no risk of excessive slippage. With the growth of digital asset derivatives, participants of all kinds will need new and efficient ways to hedge their positions.”
Steps towards full CFTC oversight
As CryptoX has reported, Tassat recently succeeded in overcoming the first hurdle in its bid to launch its own fully-regulated crypto derivatives exchange.
The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) approved the transfer of existing registration rights from affiliated financial services firm that pave the way to allowing Tassat to operate an exchange listing futures or options contracts with the agency’s oversight.
In March, Tassat — when it was still known as trueDigital — partnered with crypto data firm Kaiko and digital assets analytics company Inca Digital Securities to widen the distribution of its over-the-counter reference rates for Bitcoin and Ethereum (ETH), the latter of which it created in partnership with ConsenSys.
