Bitget has announced a strategic partnership with Arkis, an institutional digital asset prime brokerage, to roll out Direct Market Access (DMA) within Arkis’s unified prime brokerage framework. This collaboration signals a significant transformation in how institutional trading desks can gain access to centralized cryptocurrency liquidity while effectively managing financing and risk via a consolidated portfolio-based margin system.
Through this affiliation, institutional clients will have the ability to execute trades on Bitget while leveraging Arkis’s credit infrastructure for financing their positions. The traditional approach of maintaining separate margin requirements at each exchange will be replaced by a portfolio-level margin model, which nets exposure across various supported exchanges within the Arkis ecosystem. This innovative structure aims to align cryptocurrency trading more closely with established standards seen in traditional prime brokerage.
Historically, institutional traders have faced challenges due to fragmented collateral requirements across multiple exchanges. In centralized crypto markets, capital tends to be siloed, meaning that margin deposited on one platform cannot be utilized against positions held simultaneously on another. This fragmentation lowers capital efficiency and complicates effective risk oversight. By integrating Bitget into Arkis’s unified credit model, the partnership strives to address these longstanding structural inefficiencies.
Gracy Chen, CEO of Bitget, highlighted the need for institutions to allocate capital efficiently across platforms without the burden of managing fragmented margin requirements. She emphasized that the integration with Arkis provides a pragmatic method for institutional traders to engage with Bitget while maintaining robust risk and financing management within a portfolio-level framework.
As more hedge funds, proprietary trading firms, and market makers look to expand their exposure to digital assets, the demand for capital-efficient, prime-style infrastructure has grown exponentially. The Bitget-Arkis collaboration is positioned to serve this pressing requirement.
At the heart of their partnership is the transition from isolated margin requirements to portfolio-level netting. In conventional capital markets, prime brokers offer cross-margining capabilities that facilitate the offsetting of exposures across various asset classes and exchanges. Conversely, crypto trading has typically mandated full collateralization at each venue individually.
Through Arkis’s framework, institutions can borrow against a unified portfolio margin covering Bitget and other supported exchanges. This approach allows for optimized capital allocation while ensuring centralized oversight of leverage and risk parameters. Moreover, the integration employs sub-account structures and API-based workflows, enabling institutional clients to execute trades on Bitget while managing financing and risk monitoring within Arkis’s prime brokerage infrastructure. This functional separation between the execution venue and the credit provider mirrors the practices of traditional prime brokerage models.
Serhii Tyshchenko, CEO of Arkis, remarked on the necessity for trading firms to achieve capital efficiency without compromising risk discipline. He underscored that enabling DMA to Bitget via Arkis’s unified margin framework allows institutions to finance their positions in a holistic manner, aligning with the operational expectations of professional trading environments.
For trading desks that operate multi-venue strategies, cross-margining can drastically enhance capital utilization. Market makers, for example, often maintain offsetting positions across various exchanges to exploit market spreads or arbitrage opportunities. By allowing netting of exposure, unified margin systems can significantly decrease the overall capital required to execute specific strategies, thereby improving return on equity metrics.
However, unified credit structures also bring forth a concentration of risk within the prime brokerage layer, necessitating stringent risk management controls, real-time monitoring, and stress testing to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.
Direct Market Access is seen as a fundamental requirement for any professional trading operation. This capability allows institutions to connect directly with exchange order books via API integrations and sub-account methods, streamlining processes and reducing latency. While crypto-native desks have already adopted API execution as standard, marrying DMA with prime brokerage credit offers an additional operational dimension.
With this partnership, Bitget extends its reach as a leading Universal Exchange, providing services to over 125 million users and facilitating transactions involving two million crypto tokens along with tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, foreign exchange, and precious metals. Arkis clients now gain enhanced access to Bitget within a consolidated credit environment.
The introduction of portfolio margin will also facilitate the execution of more complex trading strategies, such as basis trades, derivatives arbitrage, and the management of multi-asset exposure. Institutions often require the flexibility to dynamically deploy capital across spot and derivative markets, and unified credit constructs minimize the friction associated with shifting collateral between disparate platforms.
The success of these integrations hinges on real-time risk aggregation; portfolio-level margining demands precise mark-to-market valuations across venues and ongoing monitoring of exposure thresholds. Couples with API-driven connectivity, these systems need to be paired with automated risk protocols capable of responding to swift market movements.
This partnership addresses a significant issue in crypto markets—the liquidity and collateral fragmentation faced by institutions. Through the integration of Bitget into Arkis’s unified margin framework, the collaboration endeavors to centralize financing options while maintaining operational flexibility.
Nevertheless, unified credit frameworks necessitate careful consideration of counterparty risk concentration. As prime brokers become central figures within the trading ecosystem, the robustness of their risk management practices becomes crucial. Arkis, as an institutional digital asset prime broker, must uphold stringent protocols for credit evaluation, collateral management, and stress testing to maintain institutional confidence.
Regulatory clarity will play an essential role in the adoption of these new frameworks. Institutional participants are increasingly demanding transparency and compliant governance structures. As the cryptocurrency market aligns more closely with traditional financial oversight, prime brokerage models must evolve to meet shifting supervisory expectations.
The collaboration between Bitget and Arkis indicates a recognition that the future growth of the cryptocurrency ecosystem is reliant on institutional capital rather than solely retail engagement. Infrastructure that incorporates traditional prime brokerage principles—such as unified credit, portfolio netting, and DMA connectivity—may prove essential for the next phase of institutional adoption within the crypto space.
Overall, this partnership signifies a maturation phase for digital asset markets. As institutions pursue capital efficiency while upholding risk management standards, crypto exchanges are progressively integrating traditional finance models into their frameworks. For Bitget, this initiative enhances its appeal among institutional traders by facilitating access within a structured credit environment, while Arkis expands its range of services and solidifies its position as a unified prime brokerage spanning both centralized and decentralized venues. As market structures continue to evolve, partnerships that bridge execution platforms with institutional-grade credit frameworks are poised to shape the competitive landscape in the cryptocurrency trading arena.
