Yesterday Crypto.com announced a $400 million strategic investment from Citadel Securities, valuing the exchange at $20 billion. It is the first institutional funding round in the company’s ten-year history. The capital is earmarked for expansion beyond crypto into all asset classes, including tokenized securities and derivatives.
It is Citadel Securities’ second stake in a major retail crypto exchange in under a year. In November 2025 the market maker invested in Kraken’s $800 million funding round alongside Jane Street and DRW, also at a $20 billion valuation. That represents a change of posture. Citadel Securities made its first moves in digital assets in a controlled fashion by targeting institutions via EDX Markets, the non-custodial exchange it co-founded with Fidelity and Charles Schwab.
The deal extends a run of traditional finance stakes in crypto venues. In March, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), owner of the NYSE, took a minority stake in OKX at a $25 billion valuation, securing a board seat and a distribution deal that will put NYSE tokenized equities and ICE’s US futures in front of OKX’s 120 million accounts. In April, Deutsche Börse invested $200 million in Kraken parent Payward. Meanwhile, Korean securities firms have been taking stakes in domestic crypto exchanges, and in Japan SBI has added a second Japanese retail crypto trading venue to its portfolio alongside one in Singapore.
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