Citadel Securities Partners With Virtu Financial To Build Crypto Trading Marketplace

Citadel Securities is building a “cryptocurrency trading ecosystem” and has partnered with Virtu Financial - a company that provides financial services, trading products, and market making services - for the same.

Popular venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Paradigm are also partnering with Citadel Securities, the sister firm of Citadel multinational hedge fund giant, to build the crypto trading ecosystem, CoinDesk reported citing unnamed sources.

“This marketplace is intended to create more efficient access to deep pools of liquidity for digital assets. So a group of industry leaders are working closely together to facilitate the safe, clean, compliant, and secure trading of digital assets,” a source told CoinDesk.

According to the report, major fund managers, market makers, and other industry leaders will get on board with Citadel Securities ahead of the launch of its marketplace. "It’s more of a crypto trading ecosystem or marketplace than an exchange. It’s going to take on the exchanges by building a better mousetrap," the source said.

The firm is also "quietly hiring executives" to build the crypto trading ecosystem and is in a discussion about "a huge amount of systematic internalizing involving [Citadel’s] sister companies.”

Interestingly, Bloomberg provided an update on the development saying that Citadel Securities is developing the crypto offering with help from Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab Corp.

"We recognize that there is considerable interest in cryptocurrencies ... and will consider introducing direct access to cryptocurrencies when there is further regulatory clarity," Schwab said in a statement.