Main buying and selling agency Movement Merchants introduced as we speak (Thursday) that it has opened an over-the-counter desk that gives steady two-way liquidity for tokenized cash market funds, shares, and merchandise, with preliminary goal merchandise together with Franklin Templeton’s BENJI fund and Tether’s gold-backed token XAU₮.
The desk is designed to function 24/7 and is focused at licensed institutional traders who must handle fairness and commodity exposures when conventional exchanges are closed, the corporate stated.
Counterparties can commerce tokenized fairness and commodity exposures in opposition to fiat currencies or stablecoins utilizing customary OTC workflows with outlined settlement processes.
In a single day buying and selling quantity is the driving pressure
Movement Merchants CEO Thomas Spitz
Movement Merchants CEO Thomas Spitz characterised the launch as the newest step in a long-term change in the way in which traders entry market publicity. “Over the previous 20 years, market constructions have developed, from ETFs to digital buying and selling, and the way in which traders entry publicity has additionally modified,” Spitz stated. “Tokenization has the potential to be one of many subsequent huge steps in that evolution.”
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The corporate stated that for some large-cap U.S. shares, mixed tokenized and artificial market buying and selling “can quantity to roughly 2% to three% of the notional buying and selling quantity of main U.S. listed shares,” and that a lot of that buying and selling happens exterior of normal U.S. market hours. Movement Merchants didn’t determine which shares or cite impartial sources for its figures.
The corporate is making the transition to tokenized OTC liquidity after years of constructing its digital asset infrastructure. In 2023, Movement Merchants’ crypto subsidiary was registered with the Dutch Financial institution as a crypto service supplier within the Netherlands, permitting the corporate to offer spot OTC crypto liquidity and create a marketplace for crypto exchange-traded merchandise.
Tether Gold included from day one
Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, Supply: LinkedIn
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated the partnership displays the broader rising demand for gold publicity in each conventional and on-chain markets.
“Gold demand is accelerating in each conventional markets and on-chain as traders search resilient shops of worth amid a extra unsure macro setting,” Ardoino stated. “Liquidity suppliers corresponding to Movement Merchants play a vital function in guaranteeing that tokenized property like XAU₮ may be traded effectively throughout venues and attain a wider vary of market members.”
“Supporting XAU₮ via a number of exchanges and OTC desks will assist strengthen the market construction across the digital illustration of bodily gold,” Ardoino added, framing the deal as an infrastructure enchancment somewhat than a purely industrial one.
The desk provides what the corporate describes as threat administration designed particularly for night time and weekend market situations, however it doesn’t elaborate on the way it works.
Company OTC market faces restructuring
This launch places Movement Merchants amongst a rising section of firms constructing infrastructure for tokenized real-world property, even because the broader OTC liquidity supplier market faces rising stress.
A survey printed by Superb Markets in early 2026 discovered that 60% of institutional OTC members anticipate the variety of lively liquidity suppliers to say no by the top of the 12 months, suggesting that consolidation could also be on the horizon whilst new entrants broaden into the house.
Movement Merchants has expanded its digital asset presence on a variety of fronts in recent times. The corporate joins DWS and Galaxy Digital in a three way partnership to develop a euro-denominated stablecoin and was named the only real liquidity supplier for TP ICAP’s institutional cryptocurrency buying and selling platform upon launch in 2021.
The brand new OTC desk has expanded its actions into the realm of tokenized property, with wholesale somewhat than retail purposes being the main target of dialogue at January’s Davos assembly as establishments started treating tokenization as a sensible infrastructure difficulty somewhat than a speculative one.
Entry and availability
Establishments can entry desks through direct FIX connections, OMS/EMS platforms, ECNs, or high-touch OTC execution.
The corporate declared that asset protection will broaden primarily based on counterparty demand and regulatory concerns, noting that product availability could differ by jurisdiction and counterparty eligibility, and that there are completely different members of the Movement Merchants Group providing companies relying on the regulatory state of affairs in a specific market.
