The advent of exchanges for trading Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is driving demand for risk management and network technology that matches those available for more traditional asset types.

Perseus Telecom has created a division called the Digital Currency Initiative (dci) to establish standards to support the Bitcoin trading community.

The dci provides access to the Perseus worldwide network with connection to exchanges, risk technology providers and other market participants.

Perseus Telecom has launched trading on Bitcoin on ATLAS ATS, a digital currency exchange in New York, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Bitcoin trading is now gearing up to the high precision trading standards executed each day by leading market makers, hedge funds and investment banks and by its nature is fully electronic and fast.

“Perseus offers high precision trading access in colocation centers worldwide and adding ATLAS ATS as a new and highly liquid platform is an immediate response to customers demanding Bitcoin trading,” says Dr. Jock Percy, chief executive of Perseus. “The Perseus Digital Currency Initiative is providing governance strictly supporting KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) principals.”

“Perseus is a global fintech company that is primarily focused on exchanges, brokers, and institutions, so there was natural synergy between our firms,” said Atlas CEO Shawn Sloves. “We want to make it easier for any traditional asset manager firm or broker in the financial services space to adapt and begin to trade Bitcoin and invest in Bitcoin, much like any other asset. What we bring together is Wall Street-grade technology in telecom and infrastructure, as well as exchange-grade technology, which would be the equivalent of NASDAQ or New York Stock Exchange.”

The ATLAS ATS matching engine was built for equities, options, futures and FX, and has a matching speed of 30µs (30millionths of a second).

Atlas ATS provides a central limit order book for Bitcoin where client buy and sell orders are matched based upon price-time priority with midpoint price improvement.

Atlas ATS offers the lowest overall costs of any marketplace for digital currency and provides an enterprise trading platform to access the system at no additional cost. Atlas provides the ability to short Bitcoins and trade on margin. End users can borrow directly from Atlas to obtain a multiple on buying power as well as the ability to enter into short positions without having to wait for others to lend coins. Clients may subscribe to an aggregate pricing feed of all of the major Bitcoin markets, and leverage smart routing and auto-market making functionality built into the system.

The Atlas ATS deploys the maker/taker style pricing model for all trading activity, the prevalent standard in the U.S. equities markets. The system includes standard order types initially as well as more advanced order types similar to those offered by major equities exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ Stock Exchange.

“We view digital currency as an alternative to traditional banking and transactions in terms of payments,” Sloves said. Because you can settle in real time, at some point you’ll see it used for settlement of trades.”