Bitcoin bears have dominated the market this year, but not everyone is ready to write off the cryptocurrency quite yet.

Gemini Trust Company LLC, the cryptoexchange owned by the Winklevoss twins, today announced a new product that aims to reduce the impact of large volume bitcoin trades on the overall market.

Called Gemini Block Trading, the new service allows traders to buy or sell large quantities of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies outside Gemini’s continuous order books, creating what the company describes as “an additional mechanism to source liquidity when trading in greater size.”

Block trading itself is a permissible, noncompetitive, privately negotiated transaction either at or exceeding an exchange-determined minimum threshold quantity, which is executed away from an electronic market. In terms of the Gemini offering, that means large trades initiated by so-called bitcoin whales or hedge funds would be traded off Gemini’s main bitcoin index, meaning that their acquisition or sale wouldn’t count toward it.

If that sounds sort-of like hidden trading, the data from each block trade is transmitted to others. “Block orders will be electronically broadcast to participating market makers simultaneously, ensuring best execution and price discovery for those participating in the program, Gemini wrote. “Block orders do not interact with our continuous or auction order books. Trade information will be published via our market data feeds 10 minutes following the execution of a block trade.”

Bloomberg noted that block-trading companies have recently popped up in Hong Kong, Australia and other markets to meet demand from hedge funds and similar institutional buyers, so Gemini’s service has some precedent.

The new service comes as bitcoin’s price continues to flounder at below the $7,000 mark first breached March 29 as bitcoin approached its “Death Cross” statistical estimate of longer-term trends. Bitcoin has mostly flatlined through April so far, with the price sneaking up to $7417.89 April 3 but mostly sitting below $7,000. As of 10:15 p.m. EDT, it was trading at $6,742.56.

Photo: rorycellan/Flickr