Head of Kraken's OTC division: The cryptocurrency market is the new Wall Street

The head of the OTC division of the exchange, Kraken Nelson Minnier, who used to work with companies such as JPMorgan and Credit Suisse, talked to Nasdaq TradeTalks about changes in trading.

"Wall Street is no longer the same. My first 15 years on Wall Street were fun," he says. - I was very lucky to start on the CDS market, which was similar to today's cryptocurrency market. A lot of financial innovations, a lot of trading. They are very similar in energy and enthusiasm for progress and direction.

According to Minnier, now the trend is aimed at joining the cryptocurrency space of portfolio managers, "adventurers and advanced hedge funds". "I think that in one moment cryptocurrencies will become the phenomenon that everyone will be following," he added.

The head of Kraken's OTC division stressed that his company has noticed the growth of institutional investors' demand for cryptocurrencies, but the process is slow. Explaining the reasons for institutional investors' interest, Minnier pointed to the high potential return on cryptocurrencies, which does not come without the risks involved: "I think it is still one of the most volatile asset classes on the planet. We just dropped from $10,800 to $10,000 in a very short time.

Minniere's views are shared by other former Wall Street employees who have moved into the cryptocurrency industry, such as Markus Swainpol, founder of the Luno London Stock Exchange. "Over the past two years, we've seen Bitcoin become an uncorrelated asset class, so it makes sense to add it to portfolios," said Swainpol Financial Times.

Earlier, Minier said that the trading volume of Kraken's OTC division for a year and a half has increased 20 times.