Citadel Securities Takes $400 Million Stake in Crypto.com at a $20 Billion Valuation

Citadel Securities, the electronic market-maker founded by Kenneth Griffin, invested $400 million in the exchange Crypto.com, valuing the company at $20 billion in what CoinDesk reported is its first institutional funding round.

The stated use of the money is expansion into tokenized securities and derivatives, according to crypto.news. Citadel Securities is one of the largest providers of liquidity in United States equities and options, and its arrival as a shareholder ties a dominant traditional trading firm to a retail-heavy crypto venue at the moment exchanges are competing to list on-chain versions of stocks and bonds.

Bitcoin Magazine noted the deal marks a shift from Citadel Securities providing liquidity in crypto markets to owning a stake in the venue itself. For Crypto.com, the value is the capital and the association with a firm that institutional counterparties already trade with.

The first-principles read is that crypto's infrastructure is being absorbed by the incumbents it once promised to bypass. A market-maker that profits from spread and flow now has an equity interest in where that flow is routed. That concentration of trading, listing, and ownership among a few firms is the opposite of the disintermediation the industry markets, even as it gives the sector durability and access to institutional balance sheets.