BlockFi Launches ‘Prime’ For Institutional Investors

Demand steady from institutional and high-net worth individuals despite slump in market.

article-image

Source: Shutterstock

share

key takeaways

  • BlockFi executives call this the ‘evolution’ of digital assets
  • Margin trading and lending as well as derivatives are in the works

Citing high demand from institutional investors, BlockFi announced today that its launching BlockFi Prime, a trading platform geared towards institutional investors and high-net worth individuals.

BlockFi Prime will offer clients a “full suite” of trading capabilities including real-time streaming quotes, a 24-hour settlement cycle, real-time quotes, and, in the future margin lending, trading, as well as access to derivatives markets.

BlockFi also said that it will include API access that lets users integrate their own high-frequency trading algorithms into the platform. 

BlockFi’s 24-hour settlement tool means that traders don’t have to pre-fund their account to trade. Instead, it can be funded up to 24 hours after the trade which is useful for a market that operates outside of traditional business hours.  

“Developing and launching BlockFi Prime is a natural next step for us as we continue to respond to the evolution of digital assets and institutional investors adjust their trading strategies,” said David Olsson, Vice President and Global Head of Institutional Distribution at BlockFi, in a statement. “Just in the last year, we have added lending, trade execution, private client services and new products in order to help our clients meet their investment goals, and BlockFi Prime gathers all of those resources in one easy-to-use tool.”

In another interview Olsson said that BlockFi has a few hundred active institutional clients, up from 30 a year ago. 

Speaking with Blockworks via email, he said that BlockFi believes institutions are still interested in entering the market despite what some have called the beginning of a bear market. 

“Institutions committed to the space when prices were higher, and invested in the infrastructure and human resources needed to support their investments for the long haul,” he said. “Now, those institutional investors still believe in the macro case for crypto, due to an inflationary economic environment and use cases for blockchain’s utility. For those reasons, we believe the most potential alpha of any asset class is in crypto at the moment.”

On June 8, news leaked that BlockFi was in talks to raise a new Series E funding round of $500 million, bringing the company total valuation to nearly $5 billion.

The latest BlockFi news comes on the heels of two other significant moves that meld the world of digital assets and traditional finance.

Earlier Thursday, State Street, a custodian bank that manages over $40 trillion in assets, announced that it is opening up a digital assets division covering both crypto and tokenized assets.

In addition, hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger said that it had closed a $380 million Series C fundraising round to expand its institutionally-focused secure custody solutions.   

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Nillion_DeSci_Report_Template.png

Research

Nillion’s Monad Integration is poised to catalyze the next phase of DeSci’s evolution by eliminating key privacy bottlenecks. This synergy allows researchers, institutions, and DAOs to exchange sensitive data and insights securely while managing governance and payments onchain.

article-image

Martin Masser wants to see more US builders using TON, though the TON Space Telegram wallet isn’t available there just yet

article-image

Sui Foundation told Blockworks it’s not currently supporting Seed, and Mysten Labs only helped Seed with its smart contracts.

article-image

Bitcoin hit this little-known milestone days before Pizza Day

article-image

Blockworks Research also thinks that net new assets (NNAs) are a metric to keep an eye on

article-image

The Republican-sponsored GENIUS Act has passed a key procedural vote in the US Senate. 

article-image

Cash enables law evasion at a small scale and crypto enables it on a large scale