DRW leads charge into cryptoassets

Intense price swings in cryptoassets are luring the highest-volume traders on Wall Street as they search for relief from the low volatility blanketing financial markets.

Proprietary trading firms, which bet their own capital in markets from stocks to futures, are wading into bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptoassets better known as a playground for small speculators and a haven for money-laundering.

DRW of Chicago, one of the world’s largest proprietary trading companies, has led the charge. About a dozen of its more than 800 employees buy and sell bitcoin at a subsidiary named Cumberland Mining, which was established in 2014.