American Express says its venture arm, Amex Ventures has invested in Falconx the cryptocurrency trading platform focused on serving institutional trading clients. Amex’s investment, announced during a record-breaking week for bitcoin, underscores the credit card issuer’s desire to exchange for the growing institutional interest in cryptocurrencies.
Amex Venture Long Term Interest in Cryptos
According to a report, Amex Ventures’ acquisition of a stake in Falconx is the culmination of an investigation into cryptocurrencies that took an unknown number of years. In comments made following the announcement, Harshul Sanghi, Amex’s global head, briefly explains the rationale behind the financial services giant’s interest in crypto startups. He says:
Amex Ventures is investing in startups as a way to better understand the emerging areas of the payments ecosystem.
Meanwhile, prior to the Amex investment for an undisclosed sum, the crypto start-up had raised $ 17 million in May “from the likes of Accel, Coinbase Ventures and a fund affiliated with parent company Fidelity Investments.” Since then, Falconx reports that its revenue has grown significantly and the platform now handles “approximately $ 3 billion in transaction volume monthly and has 250 institutional clients.”
Meanwhile, the same report quotes Raghu Yarlagadda, chief executive and co-founder of Falconx who claims the business startup is seeing “an increasing number of traditional service providers and hedge funds interested in cryptocurrencies.” The interest reported by the latter is believed to be the key driver of the current bull run of the crypto market.
Organizational Growth
As reported by News.bitcoin.com, BTC touched a new all-time high of $ 23,777 on December 17 less than 24 hours after breaking the $ 20,000 mark. With many bitcoiners now expecting BTC’s price to continue to surge after passing its previous level of resistance, more institutional investors are expected to plunge into the crypto buying and holding frenzy.
In the meantime, as this is happening, Yarlagadda notes that Falconx will be “at the forefront of seeing this organizational growth.”
What do you think of the Amex Ventures acquisition at Falconx? Tell us what you think in the comments section.
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