Convergence Between Traditional Finance and Digital Assets to Accelerate
Global digital-asset industry executives said deeper liquidity and a systematic risk-management framework are essential to broaden institutional participation in the market. They also said the industry needs execution systems that can connect liquidity fragmented across venues and handle large orders reliably.
A panel discussion titled "Institutional Trading Stack: Liquidity, Execution, Prime Brokerage" was held on Sept. 28 at the global Web3 private conference EastPoint: Seoul 2026 at the Westin Seoul Parnas in Seoul's Samseong-dong.
The panel featured Samar Sen, head of international markets at Talos; Benjamin Stani, head of Asia-Pacific institutional sales at FalconX; Jean-David Péquignot, head of Asia-Pacific institutional markets at Deribit by Coinbase; and CJ Hetherington, co-founder and chief executive officer of Limitless.
Sen called liquidity the most underestimated factor in bringing institutional investors into digital assets. For institutions to execute large trades smoothly, liquidity spread across multiple markets must be connected efficiently.
He added that trading systems used by traditional financial firms alone are not sufficient to navigate the digital-asset market's complex liquidity structure. What is needed, he said, are algorithmic execution systems that integrate trading routes across centralized exchanges, over-the-counter markets and decentralized exchanges, while splitting orders according to market conditions.
Panelists also said the market needs a broader set of financial products to manage portfolio risk for institutional investors. Hetherington said traditional finance uses a range of risk-management tools, including interest-rate swaps and credit-default swaps, yet many areas still lack suitable hedging products.
He cited the fast-growing private-credit market as one example. Default risk tied to lending to private companies is rising, but there are still too few products that allow that risk to be transferred to or distributed among other investors. Digital-asset-based contracts could become a tool for managing risks that have been difficult to address with traditional financial products, he said.
The convergence of traditional finance and digital assets was another major theme of the discussion. Panelists said more financial firms are investing in digital-asset companies or building their own trading and custody infrastructure. They added that the licenses, client bases and trust with regulators that established financial institutions already possess could prove to be competitive strengths as the two markets converge.
Changes in the US regulatory environment were also cited as a factor that could speed that convergence. Still, panelists said other countries also need to accelerate regulatory preparation if the trend is not to become concentrated in the US.
Oh Yu-rim, Bloomingbit reporter / Lee Su-hyun, Bloomingbit reporter