Wall Street Serious About Crypto: Winklevoss Twins

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the twins behind the Gemini Exchange, said that the crypto market is still “primarily retail driven,” but that “this will change over time” as more Wall Street firms take the leap into crypto.

In the interview with Bloomberg, the brothers, who have famously invested a sizeable portion of their wealth in bitcoin, insisted that they are not licking their wounds after their ETF application was rejected by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in July. Instead, the two are now focused on “increasing individual investor business”.

Gemini Exchange is reportedly in the process of expanding their operations, and has doubled its global workforce to 150 people over the past six months. In addition, the company just brought onboard Robert Cornish, former chief information officer at the New York Stock Exchange, as its first chief technology officer.

Gemini is 23rd in the exchange rankings (adjusted volume) on coinmarketcap.com by trading volume in the past 24 hours (USD 66 million).

In addition to working on their exchange, the two are busy talking with regulators and financial institutions on what can be done to improve the public image of the crypto space.

Further, the twins are now preparing what they hope can become a self-regulatory organization for the crypto space, similar to how the Commodity Futures Trading Association (CFTA) regulates the futures markets in the US. In March, the brothers filed a proposal to set up the new organization under the name Virtual Commodity Association, with an aim of developing industry standards, promote best practices and work with other regulators, including the CFTA.

Meanwhile, Crypto Fund Research, a research company, announced last week that it expects to see nearly 150 crypto fund launches in 2018, based on the pace throughout the first part of the year. “Total cryptocurrency fund assets could easily double over the course of the year,” it added.