[cturner]

A major difference is the clearing model. The asset classes you mention generally have a clearing house behind them. This is designed to protect the system against counterparty risk. If one party goes under, it has limited contagion, even to the people who were (in practical terms) on the other side of the trades.

This layer of protection allows better specialisation. In crypto, you need to trade on your own balance sheet. In centrally cleared markets, it is routine for trading firms to lease balance sheet from banks, who have lots of capital and good risk management at scale, but who are typically less effective at trading specific markets competitively. This leads to more liquidity being available and more competitive markets.

[RayVR]

Banks aren’t trading because post-2008 regulations made it nearly impossible. They have plenty of money to hire top trading talent and did so for a long time.