FIX and Global DCA partner to promote standards for digital asset trading

The FIX Trading Community has partnered with the Global Digital Asset & Cryptocurrency Association (Global DCA) to strategically combine their complementary efforts to further promote standardization for trading digital assets.

The FIX Trading Community, which owns and maintains the FIX Protocol, has an active Digital Asset Working Group (DAWG) focused on the use of FIX for the electronic trading of digital assets and is also involved in ISO TC68/SC8/WG3 in the development of other standards for this industry.

The Global DCA was established to guide the evolution of digital assets, cryptocurrencies, and the underlying blockchain technology within a regulatory framework designed to build public trust, foster market integrity, and maximize economic opportunity for all participants.

The FIX Trading Community DAWG and Global DCA will share information and experience to achieve their common goals. The cooperation aims to promote the development and use of standards for the entire life cycle of the electronic trading of digital assets from buy-side, sell-side, exchanges/trading venues, settlement/custody, and regulatory compliance/reporting.

Tony Pettipiece, Board of Directors and Chair of the Policy & Regulation Committee at the Global DCA, commented: “We are excited to be working with the FIX Trading Community to help shape the evolving standards for the trading of digital assets, and also to leverage the expertise of GDCA members by FIX institutional traders as their participation in digital assets continues to grow.”

Sean Ristau, co-chair FIX Digital Asset Working Group, EVP of Account Management & Solution Engineering, Prime Trust, said: “Promoting the use of clear standards is central to the FIX Trading Community mission. As the de facto standard for electronic trading, we are excited about the opportunity for FIX to become ubiquitous in the trading of digital assets. Cross collaboration is key and has helped the digital asset community with the hyper-growth being experienced. We look forward to working with the Global DCA and its’ membership to promote standards for the evolving digital economy.”

Just as FIX has reduced costs for the traditional financial industry, a FIX standard for digital assets could significantly reduce the technical friction and cost for traditional financial industry participants to interact with newer crypto exchanges.

Pre-trade efficiencies in market data and quoting, and post-trade efficiencies in trade reporting and settlement would be possible, serving market data vendors, buy-side institutions, and custodians.

Regulators could more easily track the new digital asset landscape if they could leverage the same reporting infrastructure employed within traditional asset classes.

FIX Trading Community began its life in 1992 as an equities protocol, but since then has expanded to include equity options, fixed income, forex, listed derivatives, and a wide range of OTC products.

FIX already has a modular data model for assets and parties, and a rich message catalog for transaction workflows, including orders and executions, market data, reference data, and trade reporting.

According to the community, very little in the FIX Protocol actually needs to change to support digital assets.