Coinbase is teaming up with a Chicago-based tech firm to unleash crypto onto Wall Street

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• Trading Technologies International (TT) is teaming up with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to enable spot and futures bitcoin trading on its platform.
• TT chief executive officer Rick Lane said the move would push trading firms to dive deeper into the market for digital coins.

Two trading companies are joining forces to make cryptocurrency investing more palatable for traditional financial services firms.

Trading Technologies International (TT), a Chicago-based technology provider for some of the largest market makers, banks, and proprietary trading shops, announced on Thursday a partnership with San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. The collaboration is intended to allow clients to trade futures and spot bitcoin side-by-side starting on March 1.

Currently, TT provides a complete tool set that allows traders to trade cash against futures in other markets, such as fixed-income. Having bitcoin futures and spot bitcoin on one platform will lead to a significant growth in the muted futures market as well as in spot bitcoin, according to chief executive Rick Lane.

"Without that, firms can only dip their toes in the water," Lane said in an interview with Business Insider.

That's because trading firms are limited in what they can do when things are separated. For instance, they can't execute spread trades - which is the buying and selling of two assets simultaneously. In addition, traders are creators of habit, so seeing bitcoin on a familiar platform like like TT could push them to dive deeper into the market, according to a firm spokesperson.

At present time, only about 20 market participants are trading on the Cboe Global Markets bitcoin futures market. And volumes for both Cboe's and rival CME Group's bitcoin futures markets have been low. For instance, volumes for front-month contract trading on Cboe are slightly above 1,500, according to the company's data.

Adam White, general manager of GDAX - Coinbase's digital currency exchange - told Business Insider that clients have pushed for them to be integrated onto TT's platform.

"It'll allow them to take risk neutral positions without having long and short exposure," he said.

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