Swiss bourse,

Trading venues were initially targeted at the retail market but are now courting institutional investors such as hedge funds, wealthy investors and proprietary traders. The latter group are keen to invest in digital assets, but require higher standards of protections for their funds.

Coinbase, a crypto exchange, has begun offering custody services to investors concerned about the safety of their assets. Huobi, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, has a default fund to protect users against some specific shocks.

Meanwhile, traditional exchanges are also looking at targeting institutional investors wanting to trade cryptocurrencies, hoping their experience in building high-capacity, secure systems will offer asset managers more reassurance. Nasdaq, the US exchange, will supply surveillance technology to Gemini, the cryptocurrencies trading venue run by US internet entrepreneurs the Winklevoss twins.

Thomas Zeeb, Six’s head of securities and exchanges, said the challenges for the digital sector lie “less in the trading of assets but rather in the custody and asset servicing, including asset safety.” Six would provide “all steps of the chain in an integrated and secure model.”

The Swiss exchange is rare in Europe in operating a major payments system alongside its traditional trading and clearing services.