Institutions are unbothered by crypto assets continuing to trade far below all-time highs, LMAX Group CEO David Mercer told TechCrunch.

Even though the total crypto market capitalization has fallen from over $2 trillion at the beginning of the year to about $1 trillion today, institutional investors “haven’t wavered one inch,” Mercer said.

“It hasn’t gone backward,” Mercer said. After the chaos surrounding crypto lending platforms like Celsius and BlockFi and the collapse of the Terra LUNA ecosystem in May, everyone expected institutions to retract their engagement, Mercer said.

But institutional engagement today is the same as last year, and “may even be better,” Mercer commented. Institutions are moving ahead, he added. “The herd is inching forward.”

In 2018, the company launched LMAX Digital, an institutional cryptocurrency exchange. “[When we launched] we asked 35 banks if they wanted to trade this product and have market data, they said no,” Mercer said. “Today, 14 of those 35 take our market data.”