NinjaTrader Group acquires Tradovate, Coinbase acquires FairX

Industry news and what it could mean for TradeDay, its traders, and the retail futures industry as a whole.

Earlier this year there were 2 significant industry announcements that will have an impact on TradeDay, its traders, and the wider retail futures industry as a whole.In the coming weeks and months, we will start to see the benefits of both of these announcements.In this blog post we will take a look at the following developments and their impact on retail futures trading.

1. NinjaTrader Group acquires Tradovate for $115 million
2. Coinbase acquires FairX  

TradeDay and NinjaTrader: The future of funded tradingBack in January of this year in apress release, NinjaTrader Group, LLC, announced that it had acquired Tradovate Holdings, LLC for $115 million.Ninja Trader, the leading provider of trading software and brokerage services to active traders, has since been incorporating the online futures brokerage firm and trading technology provider Tradovate, into its package for traders.At TradeDay we currently offer Tradovate as our preferred broker and platform, but we are extremely excited to be in discussions with NinjaTrader to quickly roll out their platform to our traders once integration has been completed. This integration is something that is beyond our control at TradeDay, but we certainly anticipate that the offering will come before the end of 2022, and hopefully by late Q3/ early Q4.Martin Franchi, CEO of NinjaTrader Group, LLC, stated, “NinjaTrader’s and Tradovate’s shared vision to transform retail futures is at the heart of this transaction and will accelerate our goal to make futures more accessible, mainstream and modern. The combination of the largest and fastest-growing market leaders and our commitment to continued investment in the businesses will unlock innovation and scale, which will ensure we rise to meet the growing demand of the trading community for innovative products and services. Together we look forward to continued advocacy and support of the rapidly expanding retail futures community.”What this means for TradeDay and its tradersTradeDay believes that the impressive ecosystem of the NinjaTrader platform, with its various available, third-party add-ons, alongside the flexibility of the Tradovate platform across different operating systems, will provide an amazing opportunity going forward for traders taking the TradeDay Evaluation Challenge, and for our funded traders.We are very likely to see the ability for traders trading on their Ninja desktop application, to see and manage their trades on the go through the Tradovate mobile application.We will keep you posted on the progress of the integration.Have a great trading day, with NinjaTrader, Tradovate, and TradeDay!

Coinbase acquires FairX

The second significant event for retail futures traders was Coinbase’s acquisition of FairX.With the explosion of growth in futures trading, and the desire by some crypto traders to move over to a more transparent and regulated marketplace, the ability to trade futures has been a hole in the Coinbase portfolio of products and services.FairX, a new futures Exchange launched last year, had already gone through the long and arduous process of building an Exchange, establishing liquidity partners, and more importantly for Coinbase – acquiring the necessary licenses, and getting registered with US regulators.The purchase by Coinbase gives them the ability to create a futures marketplace for its vast customer base and puts them on a strategic path similar toFTX.US which acquired LedgerX last Augustand Crypto.com, whichacquiredretail derivatives platform Nadex.“This is the most important stepping stone for us to help a derivatives market come to form,” Brett Tejpaul, head of Coinbase Institutional, said in an interview. “We think the U.S.listed derivative market presents a very substantial commercial opportunity.”What this means for TradeDay and its TradersFairX products already trade on the Tradovate platform, TradeDay’s broker, but to date, we have not allowed access to these products for our traders. The main reason is we felt the lack of initial liquidity in the products creates a risk management challenge.However, given the contract specification of the new Nano Bitcoin futures, the commitment by Coinbase to make these products succeed, and the overall general demand for crypto trading in all of its forms, TradeDay anticipates there is a good chance the new contracts can become liquid in a short period of time.TradeDay will continue to monitor closely the growth of the new products and make a strategic decision on incorporating them into our portfolio of permitted products when they have met our rigorous risk management requirements.If you are interested in getting funded as a crypto futures trader…then watch this space!