As the traditional finance and crypto trading worlds continue to converge, digital assets trading platform operator Crypto.com has announced that the company has agreed to a strategic $400 million investment from market maker Citadel Securities, valuing Crypto.com at $20 billion. (Meaning, that Citadel is taking a 2% stake in Crypto.com).

The milestone marks the first institutional funding round in Crypto.com’s decade-long history.

Similar move by Kraken

The move by Crypto.com comes after Payward Inc, parent company of its rival Kraken, recently received a $200 million investment from financial exchanges operator Deutsche Börse Group.

Citadel Securities’ investment comes as the industry is undergoing rapid institutionalization, with crypto increasingly serving as fundamental infrastructure for a greater part of the capital markets. Funding is expected to accelerate Crypto.com’s expansion into all asset classes, including tokenized securities and derivatives, bridging the gap between digital asset and traditional markets to create a more efficient 24/7 financial ecosystem.

Kris Marszalek, Co-Founder and CEO of Crypto.com said,

“We are thrilled to work with Citadel Securities to continue driving the crypto industry into a new era of institutionalization. The size of the opportunity in front of us is staggering, as crypto increasingly becomes the rails for finance. Having built the right regulatory and tech infrastructure over the last decade, Crypto.com is now perfectly positioned to capture this new wave of growth across all asset classes.”

Jim Esposito, President of Citadel Securities said,

“The convergence of traditional financial markets and digital asset infrastructure is an exciting evolution with the potential to further improve market efficiency. Crypto.com has built a foundation to support the continued institutionalization of the digital asset market, and we are pleased to collaborate with the Crypto.com team as we help create the capital markets of the future.”

Crypto.com has been taking a series of steps to build out its business beyond digital assets trading. The company hired OKX alum Iskandar Vanblarcum last month to head Prediction Markets. Crypto.com also recently inked a deal to integrate popular multi-asset charting-based trading platform TradingView.

About Crypto.com

Founded in 2016, Crypto.com is trusted by millions of users worldwide and is the industry leader in regulatory compliance, security and privacy. Our vision is simple: Cryptocurrency in Every Wallet™. Crypto.com is committed to accelerating the adoption of cryptocurrency through innovation and development of new use cases including prediction markets and tokenized RWAs.

About Citadel Securities

Citadel Securities is a technology-driven, next-generation global market maker. We provide institutional and retail investors with world-class liquidity, competitive pricing and seamless front-to-back execution in a broad array of financial products. Our teams of engineers, traders and researchers harness leading-edge quantitative research and the accelerating power of compute, machine learning and AI to power our analytics and tackle the market’s and our clients’ most critical challenges. Together, we are forging the future of capital markets.