FIX Trading Community, the non-profit, industry-driven standards body at the heart of global financial trading, today announced the formation of a new Working Group to focus on the growing number of Digital Currency and Blockchain technology initiatives. Many of the FIX Trading Community members have internal groups focusing on this topic. With the creation of the FIX Trading Community’s new Digital Currency and Blockchain Working Group, this will enable wider business and technical discussion and collaboration.

The core focus of the Digital Currency and Blockchain Working Group is to identify, analyse and define use cases and integration points for digital currency and distributed ledger technologies across the spectrum of capital markets requirements, and recommend best practices for FIX implementation and usage of this emerging technology in financial markets. 

Sean Ristau, Head of Wealth Management & Derivatives at Raptor Trading Systems, Ron Quaranta, CEO of Digital Currency Labs LLC. and Ryan Pierce, Director and Technology Architect, Engineering and Execution at CME Group will chair the group.

“As Digital Currency and Blockchain technology initiatives around the globe continue to grow, members are looking to the FIX Trading Community group for guidance. The formation of this Working Group is an important step in this process. I am thrilled to be part of this monumental technology expansion and looking forward to the collaborative efforts with my industry colleagues.” said Sean Ristau, Head of Wealth Management & Derivatives at Raptor Trading Systems.

Ryan Pierce, Director and Technology Architect, Engineering & Execution at CME Group commented, “I am excited to see FIX Trading Community taking a leading industry role in addressing these new technologies, and I look forward to helping this Working Group explore new opportunities.”

The Digital Currency and Blockchain Working Group is looking for volunteers to assist with many of the defined work streams and the group is open to new and existing FIX Trading Community Members; those who are not FIX Trading Community members can join on a trial basis for a period of three months.

For more information please contact the FIX Trading Community Program Office at fix@fixtrading.org.