It was only three years ago that a dispute between an infamous crypto billionaire and a titan
of the financial establishment became the center of attention at an annual event known as
the Davos of the derivatives market.

The dust up between FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Terry Duffy, the boss of the US’s
largest futures and options exchange, was emblematic of Wall Street’s skepticism then about
a new generation promoting digital assets and the crypto bigwig’s plans to change the way
derivatives trade.

But that was then. This year, as executives from the world’s largest exchanges and trading
firms prepared to head to the Futures Industry Conference in the crypto hotbed of Florida,
President Donald Trump announced he was creating a strategic Bitcoin reserve — a move
that’s symbolic, but one that effectively entrenches the legitimacy of digital assets as
mainstream financial instruments.

For Wall Street firms that had only dipped their toes in the crypto space, the next four years
present an opportunity to make inroads in an industry that’s swiftly gained momentum amid
the Trump administration’s embrace. On Thursday, Bloomberg News reported that World
Liberty Financial Inc., one of the Trump family’s crypto ventures, has discussed doing
business with the world’s largest digital-asset exchange, Binance Holdings Ltd.

That shift in sentiment was on full display at the conference, held at The Boca Raton hotel,
where traditional finance executives this week rubbed shoulders with those in the crypto
industry. One noticeable difference: This time, almost everyone was in suits, or at least a
collared shirt; gone were the shorts-and-t-shirt uniforms so ubiquitous among the crypto
crowd in times past.

The entertainment also skewed older. The 1970s hitmakers Cheap Trick blasted their tunes
for the likes of New York Stock Exchange President Lynn Martin and DRW Holdings founder
Don Wilson.

“Crypto is back,” Catherine Clay, head of derivatives at Chicago-based options powerhouse
Cboe Global Markets, said in an interview. “We definitely have seen the re-emergence of the
crypto theme back at Boca after a few years of it being pretty much absent.”
Trump pledged to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet” during his campaign, and
since taking office has worked to make good on his promises. He issued an executive order
on digital assets and his top securities regulator has started a task force on crypto headed by
Hester Peirce, a longtime advocate for the industry.

All of that is giving Wall Street confidence. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Securities, previously
conservative in its approach to digital assets, is now looking to get more involved as a
liquidity provider for cryptocurrencies. CME Group Inc. is expanding by launching Solana
futures after overtaking Binance as the world’s largest Bitcoin derivatives exchange.
Intercontinental Exchange Inc., which had stayed away, sees opportunities to step in and
compete with rival CME, according to people familiar with the matter.

Even exchanges abroad are jumping on the bandwagon. At the conference, the Singapore
Exchange Ltd., or SGX, announced plans to list Bitcoin perpetual futures in the second half
of the year. The company said its first digital asset contract will strictly target institutional
clients.

“By the end of the year, there will be a lot more firms charging into crypto,” said Jeanine
Hightower-Sellitto, chief commercial and strategy officer at EDX Markets LLC, a digital-asset
firm backed by Citadel Securities. “There’s been a substantial shift in the past two and a half
month, ever since inauguration day.”

This article originally appeared on Bloomberg. Read the full article here.