Coin Market Observer × LTP Bing: When Wall Street Begins to Approach Crypto, the Real Opportunity May Lie Behind the Trading
- Core Viewpoint: Bing, a seasoned trader with a traditional finance background, believes the long-term development of the cryptocurrency industry depends on the maturity of its infrastructure, not price fluctuations. He is dedicated to building a prime brokerage service that is rare in the crypto space, connecting multiple exchanges and providing unified risk control to truly facilitate institutional capital inflow.
- Key Elements:
- The core reason why institutional capital has yet to enter in large numbers is not a lack of demand, but the absence of mature infrastructure in the crypto market—such as unified custody, risk control, and clearing and settlement—which is standard in traditional finance.
- Prime Brokerage is an undervalued infrastructure in the crypto world. Its core challenge lies in risk management, including margin calls during extreme market conditions, forced liquidations, and tail risk management.
- Liquidity is not simply about market makers dictating prices; market makers only affect short-term order book depth. The long-term price direction is still determined by capital, sentiment, and the macroeconomic environment.
- AI will not replace traders in the short term, because AI does not bear the consequences of decisions (such as liability for losses). Humans still make the final call. In the long run, if AI can achieve optimal resource allocation, it might change the very nature of trading.
- The biggest change in the industry over the next few years could be the convergence of traditional finance and Crypto: crypto learning risk control, traditional finance learning on-chain clearing and settlement, with the boundaries between them gradually disappearing.
In the crypto industry, most people's attention is perpetually fixed on price.
How much has Bitcoin risen, will ETH hit new highs, will the next narrative shift to AI, RWA, or prediction markets. The market creates new hotspots every day, and people constantly enter or leave the industry due to price fluctuations. However, if you talk long enough with those who have truly stayed in the market for the long haul, you'll find they discuss price itself less and less.
They start talking about structure, mechanisms, and risks, as well as the underlying changes that average users barely notice. Because price is merely a result; what truly determines how far a market can go is often the infrastructure hidden behind the transactions.
In this episode of "Crypto Market Watch," we invited Bing, Managing Director of LTP. From handling foreign exchange options trading at Lehman Brothers' Tokyo office, to working at top global hedge funds and proprietary trading desks, to later founding his own fund in Hong Kong, Bing's career spans nearly two decades of traditional finance development cycles. After experiencing different phases of traditional finance, he ultimately chose to enter Crypto and began building something very mature in TradFi but still scarce in the crypto industry—Prime Brokerage.
Guest: Bing, Managing Director of LTP
Host: yuanyuan, VP of Marketing at BitMart
(Link to this episode: https://www.xiaoyuzhoufm.com/episode/6a1507f2e59ebca936498313)
From Wall Street to Crypto: What Attracts Him Is Not Making Money, But Change Itself
Many assume that people from traditional finance enter Crypto primarily for higher returns. But what truly attracted Bing was not the "wealth effect," but the industry's inherent change.
Bing's first job was at Lehman Brothers' Tokyo office, primarily handling foreign exchange derivatives trading. He later moved on to top hedge funds and bank prop trading desks in the US and Europe, focusing on macro and volatility arbitrage for a long time. Afterwards, he founded his own fund in Hong Kong, experiencing entrepreneurship and the shifts brought by market cycles.
Rather than being seen as a manager or entrepreneur, he prefers to view himself as a trader. In his view, trading itself is fascinating—constantly understanding the market, finding patterns, and then continually overturning prior understanding.
In fact, he encountered Crypto early on. He started mining in 2016, stating that much of his initial crypto accumulation was "mined." Yet, his professional entry into Crypto came many years later.
For a long time, Bing believed Crypto and traditional finance were two separate systems. But he gradually discovered that the once-clear boundaries between them were becoming increasingly blurred.
Traditional finance started paying attention to on-chain assets and digital settlement, while Crypto began building increasingly mature financial systems. Two logics that were once non-intersecting are now moving closer in the same direction.
Why Institutions Have Always Wanted to Enter Crypto but Haven't Really Come In Yet
Over the past few years, the phrase "institutional entry" has been common in the industry. But in Bing's view, this statement isn't entirely accurate. Institutional demand has always existed; the market simply wasn't ready. In the traditional financial system, before a large fund enters a market, a very mature infrastructure is in place: trading, financing, custody, risk control, clearing and settlement—each link corresponds to a specialized service provider. However, Crypto isn't like that.
For a long time, both individuals and institutions opened accounts directly on exchanges. Exchanges took on too many roles simultaneously, acting as trading venues while also responsible for financing, custody, and risk management. This model worked fine in the early days, but as the market scale expanded, it became increasingly unsuitable for large institutions. Large capital won’t want to spread assets across multiple exchanges, nor accept completely different risk systems on each platform. What they need is a more unified, mature underlying architecture. This is precisely the problem LTP is trying to solve.
Prime Broker: One of the Most Underestimated Infrastructures in the Crypto World
In traditional finance, Prime Brokerage is a very common service. Almost all large funds use this service system. Simply put, it handles not just trading access, but also financing, risk management, clearing and settlement, and asset custody. If exchanges are markets, the Prime Broker is more like an operating system connecting them. However, the real difficulty isn't connecting multiple exchanges. Bing mentioned that building a Prime Broker is like the barrel theory. Its height is never determined by the longest plank, but by the shortest one. The hardest part is actually risk control.
Because when a platform starts offering financing and leverage, it's no longer just a platform earning fees. There's no problem when clients are profitable, but when a client suffers extreme losses, the platform itself begins to bear risk. When to issue margin calls, when to force liquidate, how to handle extreme market conditions, how to manage systemic risk, technical risk, and legal risk—these things are hardly felt in normal times, but when they do occur, they often determine survival. In Bing's view, a Prime Broker essentially assumes a form of tail risk. And in the Crypto world, this capability is still very scarce.
Liquidity Is Not "Someone Buying, Someone Selling," and Market Makers Are Not Price Setters
When discussing trading, we touched upon a frequently mentioned yet often misunderstood concept: liquidity. Many ordinary users think liquidity simply means there are buyers and sellers in the market. In reality, this is a very superficial understanding.
In traditional financial markets, a large amount of liquidity comes from natural trading demand. Because there are enough participants, orders themselves form depth. But Crypto is different. Especially for many new exchanges, without market makers, the order book could be very sparse. Hence, many exchanges set up market-making incentive programs, hoping market makers will maintain depth, control spreads, and provide two-sided quotes.
But this can lead to another misconception: since liquidity is provided by market makers, are prices also determined by them? To this, Bing gave a clear answer: No. Because market makers are essentially passive fillers. They determine the thickness and depth of the short-term order book, but the true drivers of market direction remain capital, sentiment, narratives, and the macroeconomic environment.
In the short term, market makers shape the order book; in the long term, the market decides where prices go.
Will AI Replace Traders? The Question Might Be Bigger Than You Think
In the past year, AI has become an unavoidable topic in the industry. More and more trading platforms are launching AI Trading features, and more people are discussing whether traders will be replaced in the future.
But Bing believes it won't happen in the short term, and not because AI isn't smart enough, but because AI doesn't bear the consequences.
In his view, trading isn't just about making judgments; it's about making decisions. Decisions imply responsibility.
When humans make mistakes, they lose money, get fired, and it affects their lives. AI doesn't. If a program has issues, it can be deleted and restarted. So at least at this stage, humans will still make the final decisions, with AI playing a more supportive role.
However, later in the conversation, he offered an even more intriguing thought.
Financial markets are essentially about resource allocation—moving capital from one place to another, transferring risk from one entity to another. If AI can truly achieve optimal resource allocation in the future, many "trading behaviors" themselves might no longer be necessary. Because AI would have already directly accomplished what the market was originally meant to do. This might sound far-fetched, but perhaps many changes are already underway.
The Biggest Future Changes Might Not Happen at Exchanges
Towards the end, we discussed where the biggest industry changes might occur in the coming years. Many focus on new hotspots, new assets, or new trading venues. But Bing pays more attention to the infrastructure itself.
In his view, the biggest change in the coming years might be the further convergence of traditional finance and Crypto. Crypto is learning risk management and institutional structures from TradFi; while TradFi is beginning to learn Crypto's on-chain clearing, settlement, and asset digitization capabilities. Two completely different systems are constantly moving towards the middle. So, the biggest future change might not be a specific new hotspot, but rather the gradual disappearance of existing boundaries.
After finishing the conversation, one notices Bing rarely predicts prices or judges the rise and fall of specific sectors. For someone who has been trading long-term, understanding the market is more important than prediction.
After all, truly big opportunities are rarely found in the most crowded places. They lie where most people haven't looked yet.
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Recording date: May 9, 2026
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Risk Disclaimer
The opinions or views expressed in this column are solely those of the guest and do not represent the views of BitMart or its affiliates, nor should they be considered professional financial investment advice.
Cryptocurrency investment is highly speculative and carries significant risk of loss. Past performance, hypothetical scenarios, or simulated results do not guarantee future returns. The value of digital currencies can fluctuate, and buying, selling, holding, or trading them may involve substantial risk. Before engaging in trading or holding digital currencies, please carefully assess their suitability based on your investment objectives, financial situation, and risk tolerance. BitMart does not provide any investment, legal, or tax advice.
