Citadel backs two rival crypto exchanges with $600 million as both chase the same Wall Street prize
Citadel Securities, the Wall Street market maker, now has $600 million in introduced strategic investments throughout two rival crypto exchanges, every valued at $20 billion.
Crypto.com announced its $400 million deal on July 16, 2026. Previously, on Nov. 18, 2025, Kraken disclosed an executed settlement for a $200 million funding at the same valuation. Together, the investments give Citadel financial publicity to both venues as they increase past crypto buying and selling.
Crypto.com known as the deal its first institutional funding spherical in a decade. It stated the capital is predicted to speed up growth throughout asset courses, together with tokenized securities and derivatives, whereas connecting digital-asset and conventional markets.
Its ambition reaches past its present crypto exchange business towards a broader platform for monetary merchandise.
Kraken’s historic financing pointed in the same route. The trade stated the 2025 increase was to speed up its technique to deliver conventional monetary merchandise on-chain and broaden its choices past crypto. Its disclosed collaboration with Citadel contains differentiated liquidity provision, threat administration experience, and market construction insights.
The similar $20 billion valuations give Citadel publicity to two rivals chasing a lot the same multi-asset market.
If tokenized property and derivatives proceed to maneuver by way of crypto infrastructure, the market maker may acquire from that shift with out counting on a single trade.
Citadel’s investments don’t give it management over both trade. Neither announcement reveals its possession stake, board seats, voting rights, or any unique business phrases. Crypto.com additionally describes no hands-on function matching the liquidity and market-structure work Kraken outlined.
The Crypto.com deal is constant with earlier reported curiosity. In February 2025, CryptoSlate reported that Citadel was preparing, topic to trade approvals, to supply liquidity on Crypto.com and different main exchanges. That report confirmed plans involving the venue earlier than the funding, not a confirmed bilateral relationship at the time.
Crypto.com’s subsequent disclosures will decide whether or not the two-deal sample stays a capital allocation or develops into parallel market-structure roles. An outlined liquidity, risk-management, or market-structure mandate would make the operational hyperlink clearer and transfer the relationship nearer to the one Kraken described.
Without such a disclosure, the less complicated conclusion stands: Citadel has invested in two rivals pursuing the same bridge between crypto and conventional markets.
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