The world's largest brokerage firm TP ICAP plans to launch stablecoin trading pairs, scheduled to go live in the first half of next year

The world's largest brokerage firm, TP ICAP Group, plans to add stablecoin trading pairs to its cryptocurrency spot trading platform, Fusion Digital Assets, in the first half of next year. At the time of the announcement, the exchange's monthly trading volume in September surpassed $1 billion for the first time, which is five times the trading volume processed during the same period last year. On Friday, TP ICAP's Global Co-Head of Digital Assets, Simon Forster, stated in an interview that Fusion Digital Assets provides spot trading for Bitcoin and Ethereum for institutional market participants and plans to add stablecoin trading pairs in the first half of next year. Stablecoin pairs refer to trading one stablecoin or other crypto assets using another stablecoin as the pricing unit. Duncan Trenholme, TP ICAP's Global Co-Head of Digital Assets, added that this initiative reflects the company's view that over time, multinational institutions will begin to directly exchange stablecoins priced in different currencies, leading to the emergence of a parallel "on-chain" spot foreign exchange market. The surge in digital assets has been driven by a series of initiatives following the election of U.S. President Trump. Previously, Trump made a series of personnel appointments supporting cryptocurrencies and advocated for new stablecoin regulations. The more favorable regulatory environment in the U.S. has increased the interest of large financial institutions in cryptocurrencies and other tokenized assets. Thanks to significant capital inflows and rising Bitcoin prices, BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, has nearly $100 billion in assets. Large financial institutions have also intensified their efforts to use cryptocurrency technology to handle traditional assets or make payments. Due to unclear regulations and the strict capital requirements for crypto assets under Basel III, banks and other large institutions have largely stayed out of the cryptocurrency spot market. However, Simon Forster stated: The more favorable regulatory stance in the U.S. has brought benefits to platforms like Fusion and may make it easier for large financial institutions to take action in the cryptocurrency market. Fusion was launched in 2023 to provide institutional investors with a cryptocurrency platform that incorporates some of the security mechanisms commonly adopted by other traditional asset exchanges. For example, the platform features a low-latency trading matching engine, and the settlement and custody processes are separated, with related services provided by third-party network institutions