Citadel Securities Invests $400 Million in Crypto.com at $20 Billion Valuation
Crypto.com went a full decade without taking money from a big institution. That ended on Thursday, when the Singapore-based exchange announced a $400 million strategic investment from Citadel Securities, the trading firm founded by Ken Griffin, in a deal that values the company at $20 billion.
The exchange described the round as the first institutional funding in its history, and said the capital will speed its push into “all asset classes, including tokenized securities and derivatives,” according to Decrypt. Neither company disclosed the size of the stake or any board changes.
A market maker buys into an exchange
Citadel Securities is one of the largest market makers on Wall Street, handling a large share of US retail stock orders. Its interest in crypto has grown quickly over the past year. In November 2025, it put $200 million into rival exchange Kraken, also at a $20 billion valuation. That same month it co-led a $500 million round in Ripple alongside Fortress Investment Group, and it has also backed Digital Asset, the company behind the Canton blockchain, and tokenization firm Alpaca, as The Block noted.
Jim Esposito, president of Citadel Securities, said Crypto.com “has built a foundation to support the continued institutionalization of the digital asset market,” and called the meeting of traditional markets and crypto infrastructure an evolution that could improve market efficiency.
Crypto.com co-founder and chief executive Kris Marszalek struck a broader note. “The size of the opportunity in front of us is staggering, as crypto increasingly becomes the rails for finance,” he said in the announcement.
Where the money is going
The stated goal is expansion beyond spot crypto trading. Crypto.com already offers stock trading and prediction markets to retail users, and around June it added tokenized stocks to its core app, giving customers exposure to dozens of US shares and ETFs. In February, it received conditional approval for a US national trust bank charter, according to Decrypt.
Tokenized securities and derivatives are where much of the industry’s competition has shifted this year. Coinbase added stock trading for US users in February. Exchanges are racing to offer round-the-clock access to traditional assets through blockchain tokens, and to build futures and options products that keep active traders on their platforms. A firm like Citadel Securities brings deep experience in pricing and executing exactly those kinds of instruments.
The deal also fits a pattern of Wall Street institutions buying stakes in crypto venues rather than simply trading on them. Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, has taken a stake in OKX, and Nasdaq invested $50 million in Gemini. Each of these deals gives a traditional player a foothold in crypto trading infrastructure without building it from scratch.
Political ties and a soft market
Crypto.com has been closer to Washington than most exchanges. In 2025, it struck a partnership with Trump Media & Technology Group in which Trump Media bought CRO, Crypto.com’s affiliated token, and Crypto.com bought $50 million of Trump Media stock. A separate SPAC deal involving Trump Media aims to build a large CRO treasury, The Block reported. Decrypt noted the exchange has also donated millions to a political committee backing President Trump.
That backdrop matters because the political mood around crypto is still unsettled. In the Senate, the broad market structure bill known as the CLARITY Act has yet to reach a floor vote, and ethics language covering officials who profit from digital assets is among the issues still being negotiated, according to CoinDesk.
The investment arrives in a weak market. Bitcoin is down about 28% this year, and the total crypto market is worth roughly $2.2 trillion, according to CoinGecko data cited by Decrypt. Prices did firm this week after a cooler-than-expected US inflation report on Tuesday, with bitcoin touching a three-week high of about $65,200 before tensions in the Middle East capped the move.
Why it matters
For crypto readers, the headline number is less important than who is paying it. A $20 billion valuation in a down market signals that large trading firms still see long-term value in owning exchange businesses, especially those positioned to sell tokenized versions of traditional assets. It also matches the valuation Kraken received from Citadel Securities last November, and is roughly half the market value of Coinbase, which trades at around $43 billion, according to The Block.
The deal also raises questions that will play out over time. Citadel Securities now holds stakes in at least two major exchanges that compete with each other, and it is a major liquidity provider in traditional markets. How it works with those platforms on market making and order routing, and how regulators view those overlapping roles, has not been spelled out.
For now, the clearest message is the direction of travel. Crypto exchanges want to become venues for everything, from bitcoin to tokenized shares to event contracts, and the largest firms in traditional trading are paying for a seat at that table.