Citadel Securities has made a $400 million strategic investment in Crypto.com, valuing the Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange at $20 billion. The deal marks the first institutional funding round for Crypto.com since its founding a decade ago, with the capital earmarked for expansion into tokenized securities, derivatives, prediction markets, and other real-world assets. CEO Kris Marszalek described the opportunity as "staggering, as crypto increasingly becomes the rails for finance."
Wall Street Embraces Crypto Infrastructure
Citadel Securities, the market-making giant founded by Ken Griffin that handles a significant portion of U.S. equity trading, had long remained on the sidelines of crypto. The firm only cautiously entered digital asset market-making and dropped a long-running crypto lawsuit just eight days before this investment. This move signals a definitive shift, as major financial institutions that once dismissed crypto are now paying a premium to own the underlying infrastructure.
The broader trend of Wall Street and crypto convergence was evident on the same day. Alpaca raised $135 million for tokenized-stock infrastructure, Visa launched a stablecoin platform backing Open USD, Keyrock acquired BlockFills' trading assets, and the DTCC put tokenized stocks and Treasuries into live production. These moves are not about buying Bitcoin but about building the rails for 24/7 tokenized markets.
Market Moves and Industry Developments
Crypto majors traded lower alongside equities, with Bitcoin down 1% at $63,200, Ethereum falling 2.5% to $1,835, and Solana losing 2% to $75. HYPE dropped 8% to $60. On the upside, PI rose 8%, CRO gained 6%, and XDC added 3%. Stock futures were deep red as the chip selloff continued, with the Dow down 0.6% and the Nasdaq off 1.7%.
In other industry news, Polygon Labs announced layoffs as it pivots from a blockchain foundation to a blockchain payments company, targeting profitability by 2027. Visa's stablecoin platform adds competitive pressure on Circle as payments giants align behind a 140-firm consortium. Galaxy launched institutional stablecoin-yield vaults, while an open-standards body for AI payments launched to enable autonomous transactions by AI bots.