Rebuilding the Rails for Institutional Crypto Trading

TL;DR: A settlement infrastructure layer that enables institutional traders to access non-custodial exchanges through regulated custody and coordinated settlement, without moving assets offshore.

‍A new foundation for crypto market structure.

Anchorage Digital, home to America’s first federally regulated crypto bank, is launching Coordinated Multiparty Settlement (CMS), a new infrastructure built for institutional crypto trading.

‍CMS is powered by Atlas, a network designed to help institutions mitigate counterparty and operational risk when trading, borrowing, and lending digital assets. Building on that foundation, CMS brings digital asset trading into the same structure that underpins traditional finance, where custody, execution, and credit are separated across specialized participants, and settlement is coordinated across the network.

Today, much of crypto trading still occurs on offshore, vertically integrated platforms, where a single venue acts as exchange, custodian, and settlement agent. Client assets are often held in commingled omnibus wallets and titled to the exchange, rather than segregated and held in the name of the underlying client. While this model accelerated early market growth, it also introduced heightened counterparty risk and limited participation from traditional institutions.

That model is increasingly out of step with how institutions are accustomed to operating in markets.

CMS powered by Atlas offers a regulated, modular infrastructure layer that lets institutions access non-custodial crypto markets through familiar workflows while streamlining post-trade settlement across clients, counterparties, and venues.

‍A market structure institutions recognize

CMS enables a structure familiar to traditional markets like foreign exchange (FX)

• Exchanges and other non-custodial venues operate as non-custodial matching engines
• Prime brokers and intermediaries manage credit, margin, and client relationships
• Anchorage Digital provides qualified custody and coordinated settlement through its independent, federally-regulated bank

This separation of roles aligns digital asset trading with existing rails, regulatory frameworks, and internal risk models used by banks, hedge funds, and market infrastructure providers.

Rather than requiring institutions to adapt to uncomfortable crypto-native workflows, CMS allows digital asset trading and settlement to resemble the systems they already trust.

‍How coordinated settlement works

CMS serves as the settlement layer connecting venues, prime brokers, and market participants.

Clients access markets through prime brokers, who manage client balances, extend credit, and intermediate direct participant trading relationships. Prime brokers can choose to face one another as bilateral counterparties, while matching takes place on non-custodial venues.

Assets remain in custody at Anchorage Digital throughout the lifecycle of the trade. CMS ingests trading activity across venues, verifies obligations between participants, and coordinates netted settlement once all sides are fully funded.

This model replaces fragmented, pre-funded workflows with a coordinated process where capital is deployed efficiently and settlement is completed with minimized counterparty exposure.

The result is a familiar institutional workflow: clients trade through prime relationships, access liquidity across venues, and rely on a regulated custodian to coordinate settlement and safeguard assets.

‍Reducing counterparty risk and improving settlement efficiency

Traditional crypto market structure requires participants to pre-fund trading venues, introducing exposure to platform risk while locking up capital across multiple venues.

CMS, by Atlas, eliminates that requirement. 

By coordinating settlement across participants and verifying funding before execution, CMS reduces the need to prefund each leg individually and minimizes the number of asset transfers required to settle trades.

‍Launching with leading market infrastructure partners

CMS powered by Atlas is being rolled out with an initial set of institutional venues. Spotex, a leading FX ECN processing billions in daily volume, will be among the first to offer crypto trading through this infrastructure. Additional venues across both traditional and digital asset markets are in development.

“The future of digital asset markets will increasingly resemble traditional financial markets, with a clear separation between execution, custody, and credit intermediation. Working with Anchorage Digital enables Spotex Digital to bring crypto trading into that institutional framework—something our clients have been waiting for as the market continues to mature” - John Miesner, CEO of Spotex

Each new integration expands access, deepens liquidity, and increases the efficiency of the network of participants connected through Atlas.

‍Extending Atlas as core market infrastructure 

This launch advances Atlas as a platform for institutional digital asset activity. By combining regulated custody, coordinated settlement, and exchange connectivity, Anchorage Digital is establishing a standardized infrastructure layer for digital and tokenized markets, spanning spot crypto today and broader tokenized asset classes over time.

The next phase of digital asset adoption will be defined by infrastructure that meets institutional standards for risk, compliance, and operational control.

CMS powered by Atlas represents a step toward that future, enabling participants to access crypto markets through the same market structure that underpins traditional FX and Fixed Income with settlement designed to minimize risk and maximize capital efficiency.

For more information about Atlas Coordinated Multi-Party Settlement or to explore integration opportunities, please get in touch.