Decibel, a decentralized exchange for spot and perpetual trading built on the Aptos blockchain, can now be accessed directly by institutional investors through BitGo’s self-custody wallets, the companies announced.
A decentralized exchange (DEX) is a trading platform that runs on blockchain technology, allowing users to trade digital assets without a central intermediary holding their funds.
BitGo Holdings (NYSE: BTGO) is a digital asset infrastructure company that provides custody, wallets and trading services to institutional clients.
The integration uses WalletConnect, a protocol that lets users link their wallets to decentralized applications, meaning BitGo clients can now trade on Decibel without moving assets out of their existing wallets or changing their approval workflows.
“Institutions have wanted access to onchain markets for a long time. What held them back was never interest. It was the operational gap between where their assets sit and where the markets run,” said Brylee Whatley, Executive Director at Decibel Foundation.
Keeping institutional controls intact
The integration is designed to preserve the security and compliance layers institutions already use. Existing controls including address whitelisting and multi-party approval workflows carry through to Decibel trades, according to BitGo.
Wallet connectivity will initially support Ethereum and Solana, with additional networks planned over time, the company said.
“Institutions shouldn’t have to choose between the controls they need and access to onchain markets,” said Abel Seow, Managing Director and Head of APAC Sales at BitGo.
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Aptos as the settlement layer
Decibel is powered by the Aptos network, a Layer 1 blockchain designed for high throughput and low latency, essentially, it can process a large number of transactions quickly and cheaply, with sub-second finality.
Solomon Tesfaye, Chief Business Officer at Aptos Labs, one of the core developers of the Aptos blockchain, said the integration signals that regulated institutional capital is ready to move onchain.
