New players are reshaping crypto market structure, and that's bad news for exchanges

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Traders usually engage directly with exchanges or OTC desks, but a new class of firms – agency brokers – are acting as middlemen between investors and the market
This could spell trouble for exchanges, as brokers routing orders to market makers take order flow that would otherwise go to exchanges
Other barriers for exchange: the cost and difficulty of trading in comparison to utilizing agency brokers.
The structure of the cryptocurrency market is changing in a big way – and exchanges might come out as the losers. The market structure of the crypto world is drastically different from U.S. equities. In equities, traders place a trade via a broker, such as TDAmeritrade or E*Trade, who in turn either route the order