Genesis is a global digital asset services firm, founded in 2013 in New York by Barry Silbert, founder of DSG. The company provides crypto trading services on the Spot and Derivatives markets for institutional players. Genesis claims that it has the highest liquidity, and most sustainable risk management and volatility control systems. The company also operates as a market maker. , The company is an issuer of GBTC, the first Bitcoin ETF.
Genesis Trading also specializes in providing global over-the-counter (OTC) trading services for significant crypto asset transactions, serving institutional clients, and offers individual investors a full suite of services to manage their portfolios.
Genesis Overview
Genesis - About
Genesis is a prominent financial services firm specializing in digital assets. They clients are mostly institutional investors. Genesis is a subsidiary company of Digital Currency Group (DCG), along with CoinDesk and Grayscale. The firm has branches in New York, London, and Singapore.
As the Financial Times said in 2021, and later also in 2022: “Genesis is the biggest trading desk for professional investors in cryptocurrency markets.”
The company also makes some direct investments in equity and tokens of CeFi and blockchain projects.
Genesis operates various businesses through several lines, such as:
- Genesis Global Trading
- Genesis Global Capital
- Genesis Asia Pacific Ltd
- GGC International Limited
- and Genesis Custody Limited
Earlier, the firm provided institutional lending services, allowing clients to borrow or lend digital assets, but recently, on January 19 (2023), Genesis filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to seek court protection for reorganizing its digital assets lending and borrowing business. The bankruptcy filing listed over 100,000 creditors, with liabilities ranging from $1.2 to 11 billion dollars.
However, despite the bankruptcy filing, Genesis Global's derivatives and spot trading businesses are unaffected and continue to operate. Furthermore, on February 6, 2023, the company announced an agreement in principle with DCG to refinance its loans and exchange the existing $1.1 billion promissory note.
As a rather useful additional feature, since 2018, Genesis provides the crypto community with quarterly reports and in-depth insights on the state of institutional digital asset markets.
Here are some of the projects in Genesis’ portfolio: GammaX, Volare, Astaria, Flare, Enhanced Digital Group, MixMarvel, CoinRoutes, Kemet Trading, Hxro, StableCorp, and several others providing infrastructure solutions.
Here is the current balance of interests in the Genesis portfolio.
- Total number of investments: 21
- DeFi: 47.6%
- Blockchain Service: 19.1%
- CeFi: 14.3%
- GameFi: 9.5%
- Other: 4.8%
- Blockchain Infrastructure: 4.8%
GammaX