After talking to Cointelegraph on Wednesday, Swyftx co-CEO Ryan Parsons disclosed that its long-term plans are to discover ways to offer trade between traditional and crypto asset classes.
Australian crypto exchange Swyftx is finally looking to offer uninterrupted trading between the traditional and crypto-asset classes, the first step in concluding a $1.5 billion merger deal with online investment platform Superhero.
The agreement to merge the two was published on June 8, setting the merger entity as the first decentralized and traditional payment in Australia.
After talking with Cointelegraph on Wednesday, Ryan Parsons, co-CEO of Swyftx, declared that one of its long-term goals is to explore “greater interoperability within the asset class”.
“You can imagine customers trading their Bitcoin or other digital assets for equities in listed companies like Tesla, and vice versa.”
Parsons stresses that the first priority would be to work with regulators and set up appropriate customer protection:
“But it’s important to be clear that we’re working through all the regulatory requirements in what is already a quickly evolving regulatory landscape. We’re extremely keen to ensure that whatever we do, is done properly with appropriate customer protections in place.”
Although the news of the merger appeared to come without any prior warning, Parsons said it was “not surprising” that some equity trading platforms wanted to offer crypto trading and vice versa, and that mergers with Superhero were under discussion. A few months ago:
“The two teams have been actively talking for a few months, with the merger following out of initial discussions around the potential for a crypto-equities partnership opportunity. It just made more sense to join forces than to be partners.”
Co-founded in 2018 by Alex Harper and Angus Goldman, Swyftx is an Australian crypto exchange contributing 320 digital currencies and crypto interest-earning products. The company’s exchange saw a banner year in 2021, with its investor base increasing nearly 1,200% to 600,000 retail and corporate investors.
An online broker Superhero was started the same year, but only launched in late 2020. In the last 12 months, the company has grown its investor base by 600% to more than 200,000 investors with the purpose that they can trade in Australia and the United States. The stock, as well as their Superhero Supernatural (Australian 401K version) is a creation that launched in July 2021.
In a June 8 statement, Swyftx said that if the complete merger is completed by mid-2023, it will create a combined customer base of 800,000.
The integrated platform will let customers trade and invest across cryptocurrencies, equities and supernaturals. Later, Parisons said the company wants to create its own product offerings, which could include banking-type services or other traditional financial products and services.
Following the merger, Swyftx co-founder Alex Harper and current Swyftx CEO Ryan Parsons will be co-CEOs. John Winters will lead the traditional financial services arm and take a position on the board of directors.
Winters told the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday evening that the possibility of listing a joint venture on the Australian Stock Exchange once it was consolidated, but said “we have a lot of work to do before we can reach that stage.”
Winters said that for now, the two platforms will continue to operate independently of each other, and there will be no job loss as part of the merger.
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