Coronavirus Threatens to Close Wall Street, Bitcoin Remains Resilient

With the coronavirus epidemic now reaching New York, many banks are evacuating their staff. While Wall Street could struggle in the upcoming months as a result, Bitcoin trading platforms are unlikely to be affected.

Wall Street, London Banks Are Moving Staff Yesterday, the US stock markets temporarily shut down after the oil market shock. However, the coronavirus epidemic poses an even higher risk for Wall Street finance. Some of the world’s largest banks are already thinking about restructuring or reducing their workforces for a while to fight the spread of the virus. Other banks plan to move to other locations to continue their activities. CNN reported that JPMorgan had split its sales and trading teams between different offices, while Bank of America did the same with its fixed income and equities trading teams.

Elsewhere, Goldman Sachs traders work remotely for a trial period, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. Besides Wall Street, London is also dealing with the coronavirus panic. Yesterday, the UK government confirmed the fifth death from the virus. Deutsche Bank and HSBC sent some staff to work from home. As the number of new cases surges in New York and London, operating dealing rooms, where traders and employees gather to buy and sell stocks, currencies, commodities, and bonds, is becoming a challenge. Bitcoin, Crypto Traders Have Nothin to Fear While many large crypto exchanges have physical locations to handle various processes, most exchange and trading operations are carried out or can be moved online. Thus, the crypto community can rest sure that the spread of the coronavirus or any other pandemic cannot significantly affect the market from a logistics perspective. Even some of the largest crypto exchanges are operated by a team of up to 1,000 employees. For example, Coinbase has just over 1,000 employees based on its LinkedIn page. For comparison, JPMorgan has over 200,000 employees, and tens of thousands of them are located in New York. Banks and financial institutions will try to move many of their operations online as well. The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), a Wall Street trade group, told CNN Business that every year it checks the industry’s capability to continue operations through an emergency by using backup sites and alternative communication channels.