Crypto Trading Platform ErisX Hires Serial Exchange Founder Matt Trudeau

ErisX is beefing up its leadership ahead of the launch of cryptocurrency spot and futures trading early next year.

Revealed exclusively to CoinDesk, the digital asset trading platform has hired markets and exchanges veteran Matt Trudeau as chief strategy officer.

Trudeau started his trading career in the early 2000s when the U.S. equities market was going digital and has overseen some 10 global market launches including Instinet, Chi-X, IEX and most recently Tradewind, where he looked specifically at how to tokenize and trade precious metals.

Outside of crypto and financial circles, he is best known as one of the heroes of Michael Lewis' bestseller "Flash Boys," which tells the story of IEX, a stock exchange founded to promote fairer markets by creating speed bumps for high-frequency trading.

In his new role, Trudeau is tasked with thinking about the long term, beyond the current bear market conditions in crypto.

"There is the tactical trading aspects of what's going on in the market right now. But you need to take the long view. Some of best internet businesses were started after the dotcom crash," he said.

Backed by a range of large trading firms such as DRW and TD Ameritrade, as well as crypto specialists such as ConsenSys, ErisX aims to launch spot trading in bitcoin, bitcoin cash, litecoin, and ethereum by Q2 2019.

Unlike the bitcoin futures that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board Options Exchange have been offering for almost a year now, ErisX's contracts will be settled in actual bitcoin, rather than in cash.

ErisX won't be alone in listing so-called physically settled contracts, as New York Stock Exchange parent ICE is poised to offer one-day physically settled bitcoin futures on its Bakkt platform in January.

Trudeau added that what ErisX is doing with the spot market and futures fits more neatly into some of the pre-existing constructs, as opposed to things like alternative trading system licenses from the Securities and Exchange Commission for crypto firms.