TD Ameritrade Veteran Steers Launch of New Crypto Exchange

Blockchain, a London-based crypto wallet provider and block explorer service, has launched its first digital asset exchange.

Nicole Sherrod, a former managing director at TD Ameritrade, is the head of Blockchain’s retail trading products. She tells CoinDesk that the firm’s new custodial exchange, PIT, can link to non-custodial Blockchain wallets in order to conduct quick transfers. 

The exchange, which opened registration today, will allow users to trade up to 26 different crypto assets. New features will be gradually introduced in the coming weeks.

Sherrod reveals that around 40 million wallets have been created on Blockchain.com. These accounts will be connected to PIT’s matching engine.

Sherrod says that PIT might be able to provide more liquidity than its competitors. According to Sherrod,

“That’s what market makers are looking for. They want to co-locate [data center servers] with you, they want to directly connect to your matching engine. It’s the way it’s done on Wall Street.”

Notably, Tom Haller, the former senior vice president at New York Stock Exchange Euronext, was involved in the development of PIT’s proprietary matching engine.

Explaining how the exchange will operate, Sherrod says that the crypto trading platform will measure and report transaction speed in microseconds, similar to traditional stock exchanges. 

However, an anonymous industry professional points out that the theoretical speed may not remain constant if the platform experiences a system overload. The trading platform expert also mentions that infrastructure dependencies cannot be mapped out during the testing phase. 

The exchange’s actual test will begin when it’s subjected to “real-world trading volumes”, the industry expert says.

According to Blockchain’s management, the PIT exchange will support a diverse set of tokens and it will integrate SegWit, a Bitcoin software upgrade for enabling faster data processing.

Initially, PIT’s developers will not be focusing on advanced options like margin trading.

Commenting on the wide range of cryptos that will be tradable on PIT, Sherrod remarks,

“Beyond the 26 [digital assets] we already know what our phase two asset listings are going to be, as well as phase three.” 

However, Sherrod does not specify which cryptocurrencies would be supported after phase two and three have been rolled out.

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