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Citadel Securities is reportedly looking to provide liquidity to the crypto markets after years of waiting for the crypto regulatory landscape in the US to improve.
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Market-making giant Citadel Securities is reportedly looking into becoming a liquidity provider for major crypto exchanges, pivoting from its previously cautious position on retail crypto trading.
The firm is looking at some of the industry’s largest crypto exchanges, such as Binance, Coinbase and Crypto.com, Bloomberg reported on Feb. 22, citing people familiar with the matter. Citadel initially plans to set up market-making teams outside the US.
It comes as US firms anticipate a market boom under the Trump administration.
However, the extent to which Citadel becomes an active market maker will depend on how the regulatory environment shapes up in the US over the next few months.
Should there be regulatory clarity, Citadel Securities would be ready to provide liquidity and buy and sell crypto as they do in any other asset class, the sources said.
Citadel Securities previously steered clear of the crypto trading arena due to a lack of regulations around it in the US. Its reported plans come as open after a pledge by US President Donald Trump to make his country the “crypto capital” of the world.
Source: James Lavish
Cointelegraph reached out to Citadel Securities but didn’t receive an immediate response.
Citadel Securities hasn’t completely stayed away from the crypto industry in recent years, having partnered with brokerage firms Charles Schwab and Fidelity Investments to launch an institution-only crypto exchange, EDX Markets, in June 2023.
Related: Are market makers manipulating 78% of new crypto listings?
Citadel Securities even struck a partnership with Terraform Labs before it collapsed.
Former Terraform CEO Do Kwon blamed Citadel Securities for intentionally shorting the TerraClassicUSD (USTC) stablecoin to the point that it lost its peg in May 2022, with Kwon arguing that the stablecoin’s collapse wasn’t a result of instability in its algorithm.
Terraform filed a lawsuit compelling Citadel Securities to provide additional documents.
Citadel Securities responded, claiming that it only ever engaged in two test transactions with a collective value of roughly $0.13 and therefore didn’t cause USTC’s depeg. Terraform’s claim went nowhere.
Before that, crypto-focused venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Paradigm made a combined $1.15 billion investment in Citadel Securities in January 2022.
Citadel, the hedge fund, was founded in 1990 by Ken Griffin, and currently boasts over $63 billion worth of assets under management, making it one of the largest hedge funds in the world.
Citadel Securities launched in 2002 and currently serves more than 1,600 institutional clients, including many of the world’s largest central banks and sovereign wealth funds.
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This article first appeared at Cointelegraph.com News
