Leading cryptocurrency exchange Gemini has announced its plans to launch a fully electronic block trading facility this week.
Gemini Block Trading will enable Gemini customers to buy and sell large quantities of digital assets outside of its continuous order books, creating an additional mechanism to source liquidity when trading in greater size.
Importantly, the minimum transaction size is 10 BTC or 100 ETH.
In a blog post, Gemini explained that any customer would be able to place a block order that specifies buy or sell, quantity, minimum required fill quantity, and a price limit (i.e. “Indication of Interest”). Market makers only receive quantity, minimum quantity, and the collar price, not any other information related to the block order. Gemini said that if a market maker agrees to “make a market” that satisfies the Indication of Interest, the block order will be filled.
“In accordance with our commitment to an equitable, transparent, and rules-based marketplace, block orders will be electronically broadcast to participating market makers simultaneously, ensuring best execution and price discovery for those participating in the program. Block orders do not interact with our continuous or auction order books. Trade information will be published via our market data feeds ten minutes following the execution of a block trade,” it added.
Gemini Block Trading is scheduled to go live at 9:30 am ET on Thursday, April 12th.
