Financial services and technology firms launched the Association for Digital Asset Markets (ADAM) to establish a Code of Conduct for emerging digital asset markets. ADAM will be the first broad-based organization of its kind in the US seeking comprehensive standards for digital asset market participants. ADAM will work with current and former regulators to provide rules for the efficient trading, custody, clearing and settlement of digital assets.
Future guidelines will encourage professionalism and ethical conduct by all market participants; increase transparency by providing information to regulators and the public; and deter market manipulation. The Code of Conduct will complement all existing law and regulation. ADAM intends to earn the long-term trust of financial regulators and policymakers. Through such efforts, ADAM will accelerate fair and orderly digital asset markets where innovators and capital can transact with confidence.
Duncan Niederauer, former CEO of the New York Stock Exchange and ADAM advisory board member, said in a statement, “Rules are fundamental to the development of any market. Over 200 years ago, market leaders came together to draft rules that led to the creation of the New York Stock Exchange. The advent of digital assets requires a similar effort; one that will clarify existing rules and give both investors and regulators the confidence necessary to sustain this market.”
ADAM’s Code of Conduct will include guidelines for market integrity, risk management, KYC and AML, custody, record keeping, clearing and settlement, market manipulation, data protection, and research, among other topics. At a recent event in London, Jakob Palmstierna, director of Investment Solution at GSR, one of ADAM’s founding members, described crypto exchanges as characterized by a lack of security, inadequate trade confirmation protocols, and called out bad actors over fake volumes and wash trading.