Citadel Securities has made a major play into crypto infrastructure, pouring $400 million into Crypto.com at a $20 billion valuation — the exchange’s first institutional funding round since launching a decade ago.
The Singapore-based platform says the capital will accelerate expansion into tokenized securities, derivatives, prediction markets and other real-world assets. For Crypto.com, the deal is less about buying bitcoin exposure and more about building the rails for a wider digital-finance ecosystem.
Citadel Securities — the Ken Griffin-founded market maker that handles a large slice of U.S. equity trading — had long stayed on the crypto sidelines and only recently waded into market-making in the space. The investment arrives just eight days after Citadel dropped a long-running crypto lawsuit, signaling a clear shift from reluctance to active participation.
Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek summed up the opportunity bluntly: the market’s “size is staggering, as crypto increasingly becomes the rails for finance.” The deal underscores a bigger trend: traditional Wall Street players are now paying up to own the infrastructure for tokenization and 24/7 markets rather than simply buying cryptocurrencies themselves.
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