An inside look at how CoinFLEX is trying to create a repo market for crypto

CoinFLEX emerged in 2019 as one of the first marketplaces for physically-delivered crypto futures. Now, the Hong Kong-based firm has relaunched its platform to build out a repurchase market for digital assets.

Mark Lamb, CEO of CoinFLEX, sat down with The Scoop this week to talk about the plan.

In the traditional context, a repurchase market or "repo market" allows large clearing banks to exchange assets for short bursts, providing a quick way to finance other activities. Trillions of dollars a day move in the repo market. But in crypto, it's much smaller. No more than $50 million in repurchase transactions occur each day. There's also no counterpart to the traditional clearing bank, so most deals are done directly between two parties.

CoinFLEX plans to be that intermediary, launching the CoinFLEX Repo Market in addition to adding spot and perpetual contracts to its current futures market. Lamb outlined how CoinFLEX plans to stake its claim as one of the first repo markets in crypto — similar to how it did that for physically-delivered futures. He also touched on:

• How a plan to create a physical perpetual swap became a plan to create an entirely new type of instrument 
• The pros and cons of CoinFLEX's original platform, and how the firm aims to improve with the second iteration
• Why institutional clients on the exchange want leverage that’s even higher than 100x or 250x
• How CoinFLEX will be part of crypto's move to democratize access to high-leveraged finance and interest yield collection.

Listen to this week's episode on Apple, Spotify, GooglePlay, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts.