The United States-based operator of crypto exchange Huobi, Hbus, has formed a new team to launch institutional products and services, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on March 27.
The company’s new team will be led by Katelyn Mew, who previously worked at a global investment company BlackRock VP and is currently heading Hbus’ sales and marketing department. The other director is Oren Blonstein, Huobi’s vice president of technology, formerly of Tora Trading Services and Caspian.
According to the announcement, Hbus is evaluating several potential services designed for institutional clients, including token lending and over-the-counter trading. Moreover, the company said it is considering issuing a stablecoin.
Mew says that Hbus’ decision to focus on institutional clients was made according to growing demand, as such customers need a secure and trusted marketplace to use crypto services.
Frank Fu, CEO of Hbus, says that the group, which will interact with “top investors,” is now searching for more members with a strong background in financial services
Fu believes that the so-called crypto winter has in fact benefitted the industry due to the fact that only the most useful projects survived. He also thinks that the crypto area will see more involvement from traditional hedge fund managers, banks and tech giants, such as IBM, as more regulations are solidified.
In February, digital asset management fund Grayscale Investments released a report that revealed significant investments in the crypto space made by institutional investors. For Q4 2018, Grayscale found that institutional investors accounted for the majority of investments, or 66 percent. In addition to that, investors were almost exclusively based in the U.S. (99 percent), although full year statistics involved participants from other countries.
As Cointelegraph reported in late 2018, multinational investment bank and financial services company Morgan Stanley named cryptocurrencies as a new institutional investment class, noting the formation of new funds targeting the sector.
Earlier in 2019, crypto exchange Seed CX — a Chicago-based licensed platform targeting institutional clients — launched a digital asset wallet solution with on-chain settlement in partnership with its settlement subsidiary, Zero Hash.
