Crypto lender BlockFi announced the launch of BlockFi Prime, a bundled financing and trading platform for high-net-worth and institutional clients.

The new service by the New Jersey-based firm will include real-time quotes and 24-hour delayed settlement with capabilities for margin trading and automated margin lending along with derivatives expected to be offered soon as well.

These services will be available for asset managers, family offices, hedge funds, private equity firms, and corporate entities. David Olsson, the company’s global head of institutional distribution told Bloomberg,

“Our clients were asking us for this, and the reason that they’re asking is because we have essentially the largest balance sheet among the new breed of digital-finance firms and we can provide our clients the best experience.”

“Over the last three to six months, we’ve seen interest in prime services for cryptocurrencies surging in the hunt for alpha.”

The cryptocurrency financial services provider has gained “a couple hundred” active institutional clients from just around 30. And while their clients have been proprietary trading firms that trade using their own capital, now alternative asset managers also make up their large client base.

BlockFi has actually onboarded more “household-name alternative asset managers” this month than at any point in the company’s history, and the “trajectory is exponential,” said Olsson.

The average account balance for a client on BlockFi that held assets has also increased from $10,000 a year ago to $50,000 today as people get more comfortable with the products and deposit more funds.

In a separate interview with Bloomberg, BlockFi founder and CEO Zac Prince talked about regulation being beneficial for the cryptocurrency sector as well as for their business as it will enable them to continue innovating and consumers and investors to participate with “utmost confidence.” Prince in response to Senator Elizabeth Warren calling the crypto landscape the Wild West said,

“The overarching theme that we should keep in mind here is that this is part of the natural evolution of new technologies. And the fact that we're having hearings like this and starting to talk about cryptocurrencies and the digital dollar is a very positive trend overall for the sector.”

The CEO didn’t talk about the company’s second funding round this year at a $5 billion valuation but said that they are “very active” and currently excited about the Bitcoin rewards credit card which is “rolling out publicly imminently.” He added,

“Anything that we might do in private capital markets, we're also very excited about potentially entering public markets and enabling more folks to participate in the phenomenal growth that we've experienced as a company.”

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