NEW YORK - Genesis, an industry pioneer and leader in digital currency trading and lending, today announced it has launched a derivatives trading desk. The new offering, which follows last week’s announcement that Genesis is launching a prime brokerage service called Genesis Prime, expands the company’s suite of digital asset trading, institutional lending, custody, and prime services.

“Genesis is a one-stop-shop for sophisticated market participants and trading partners in the digital asset industry,” said Michael Moro, CEO of Genesis. “With a strong balance sheet and a team of talented traders with years of experience across product sets, Genesis is uniquely well-positioned to build a scalable derivatives desk. We also have developed longstanding, trusted relationships with counterparties and exceptional connectivity across the digital asset ecosystem.”

Joshua Lim, formerly of Galaxy Digital and Circle, was hired to lead the Genesis derivatives team. At Circle, Lim helped the fintech company transform its treasury operations into a top-tier OTC trading desk active with many early crypto market participants. At Galaxy Digital, he grew the firm’s institutional counterparty base by offering customized products to meet their liquidity and hedging needs, while building internal technology, risk management, and accounting capabilities to handle spot and derivative transactions. Lim provided the derivative hedge for one of the earliest non-linear crypto structured products listed on a European exchange and printed the first-ever options blocks in both the CME and ICE Bitcoin futures.

“Josh brings a wealth of knowledge and industry experience to the Genesis team,” said Moro. “He provides immediate credibility to our derivatives desk as we look to grow this important aspect of the digital asset market.”

“Genesis has been a digital asset trailblazer for years, and I’m thrilled to join the team as they scale the business,” said Joshua Lim, Director – Head of Derivatives at Genesis. “In many other asset classes, derivative volumes grow to exceed the underlying spot. We’re still in the early innings of crypto derivatives, and we believe demand for these products will increase significantly from where we are today. Genesis’ unique access to liquidity and lending markets, coupled with our trusted brand and well-established franchise, makes us an ideal derivatives trading partner for the industry.”

The Genesis trading desk will be a principal liquidity provider across crypto derivative markets and will trade both cleared and bilateral OTC derivatives in options and forwards.