Cryptocurrencies began 2018 with a combined market cap of over $800 billion dollars. If they keep surging like they have been the past several months, the $1 trillion threshold will be shattered like a piece of glass.

What’s fascinating to note, however, is that the explosion of cryptocurrencies hasn’t been the doing of large banks like other market rallies. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and JPMorgan Chase aren’t leading the charge. Rather, it’s individual investors in regions like Asia that are responsible for cryptocurrencies’ massive gains.

But despite the resiliency of crypto markets to an ongoing onslaught of criticism, there will need to be significant tailwinds if we want this rally to keep going. This is because retail investors have a limited supply of financial capital to invest with. In traditional equity markets, institutions comprise as much as 70% of trading volume, and major moves by major players can provide quite the tailwind (or headwind) for traditional markets.

In order to help institutions enter the cryptocurrency markets, one company, XTRADE.IO, is creating a platform that will serve as an onramp for institutional investors. The demand is already beginning to climb – in December 2017, Bloomberg broke the news that Goldman Sachs would soon open a cryptocurrency trading desk. Then in a somewhat shocking turn of events, famous crypto-bear Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said in an interview that he regretted his earlier criticism of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. XTRADE.IO’s platform just might be the tool that brings institutions on board.

The XTRADE.IO platform is releasing several products in 2018 that will assist institutional fund flows by normalizing trade executions, synthesizing market data, and adding much needed inter-exchange liquidity. According to XTRADE.IO, the 150 crypto funds started in 2017 could turn into 500 by the year’s end. Their platform wants to be the springboard that brings crypto to the next level.

XTRADE.IO’s Platform and Features

One of the major features of the XTRADE.IO platform is its Financial Information eXchange (FIX) API. Rather than having to meddle with several different systems, institutions can write to XTRADE.IO’s standard FIX API wrapper. This will allow them to view market data and trade executions for all crypto exchanges, all on one easy-to-use interface. No longer will retail or institutional investors have to execute multiple trades on multiple platforms. Now, everything can be done in one place.

What’s more, the platform also allows institutions to have one account across all major crypto exchanges. Rather than having to register accounts at multiple exchanges–which can be a waste of time and money–institutions can instead register one XTRADE.IO account. The platform will provide accurate prices across the marketplace and will execute trades from their internal liquidity pools. Market data will be aggregated automatically so parties no longer have to manually track prices.

In addition to helping institutions streamline their trading with one account, XTRADE.IO’s liquidity management system will reduce slippage. The proprietary liquidity pool aggregation and routing tools can break up large orders into smaller units in order to decrease the effects of big trades.

The platform can also provide instant access to liquidity, improving execution quality and making prices more efficient. It will aggregate trading volumes across all major exchanges, giving its users access to a lower tier of trading costs, which for institutions can then be passed on to clients. This can be used as a competitive edge, especially as all major exchanges charge fees.

If 2018 is anything like 2017, cryptocurrencies will continue to advance in meaningful ways. Many are bullish on the emerging technology, and with the help of the XTRADE.IO platform and its products, the total cryptocurrency market cap could reach $5 trillion by 2019. As more traditional financial firms see the benefits of blockchain technology, there will be increasing fund flows into crypto assets. XTRADE.IO can help provide the infrastructure that will make it all possible.

XTRADE.IO is launching a token presale on February 20th. The Blockchain startup already raised over $15m from institutional supporters who have experienced the FIX API product and are looking forward to releasing the other products in 2018 to allow for easy institutional access to the crypto space.