Citadel Securities Building Cryptocurrency Trading Market

Citadel Securities is a subsidiary of hedge fund titan Citadel. According to rumors quoting unknown sources on June 8, it is also collaborating with crypto venture capital companies Sequoia Capital and Paradigm. Citadel Securities' $1.15 billion fundraising round earlier this year included Sequoia and Paradigm.

The new "cryptocurrency trading environment" will be geared to provide institutional traders with more efficient access to crypto asset liquidity. The company is undaunted by the crypto sector's growing bear market, which has seen total market value fall by about 60% since November 2021.

During the past bull market, financial institutions showed a lot of interest in the asset class. They normally invest for the long term, so the present market circumstances are unlikely to dissuade them. Bear markets, on the other hand, provide more substantial prospects for profit if assets are purchased at cheap prices.

According to a source who spoke with Coindesk, the Citadel consortium will be joined by other wealth managers, market makers, and industry heavyweights before the platform's debut. They did not, however, provide a date for the rollout.

The existing crypto market structure, the insider said, is "poor and limits broader adoption from a lot of investors," before going on to explain:

"Rather than being an exchange, it's more of a crypto trading ecosystem or marketplace." It will take on the exchanges by devising a more effective mousetrap."

On the side, the company has been quietly employing executives to help build up the crypto stack.

Virtu Financial is a Canadian crypto derivatives and exchange-traded fund (ETF) market maker. It also collaborates with the Coinbase and Gemini exchanges, according to reports.

A Billionaire Makes a U-Turn on Bitcoin

In 2017, when Bitcoin was trading about $10,000, Griffin likened it to the Tulip Bulb frenzy. However, the billionaire has reversed his position on crypto currencies, telling Bloomberg in March that he made the wrong decision by becoming a skeptic. He said at the time:

"Over the past 15 years, cryptocurrency has been one of the great, great tales in finance, and I'll be honest, I've been in the naysayer camp all that time," he says.

Griffin praised the qualities of Ethereum (ETH) in November 2021, predicting that assets based on the network will ultimately supplant Bitcoin (BTC) because to faster transaction speeds, reduced prices, and a lesser environmental effect.