- Citadel Securities invested $400 million in crypto.com at a $20 billion valuation, marking the exchange’s first institutional funding round
- Crypto majors fell 2-3% alongside stocks as the chip selloff continued, with Bitcoin at $63,200 and Ethereum at $1,835
- Polygon Labs announced layoffs as it pivots to a blockchain payments model, targeting profitability by 2027
Citadel Securities made a $400 million strategic investment in Crypto.com, valuing the Singapore-based exchange at $20 billion in its first institutional funding round since founding. The capital will fund expansion into tokenized securities, derivatives, prediction markets, and other real-world assets, according to the company.
The Ken Griffin-founded firm, which handles a huge share of U.S. equity trading, spent years on the sidelines of crypto and only cautiously entered market-making. The investment comes just eight days after Citadel dropped a long-running crypto lawsuit.
Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek framed the opportunity bluntly, saying its size is “staggering, as crypto increasingly becomes the rails for finance.” The convergence of Wall Street and crypto became abundantly clear, with Alpaca raising $135 million for tokenized-stock infrastructure, VISA launching a stablecoin platform backing Open USD, and Keyrock acquiring BlockFills’ trading assets, as reports show.
The DTCC put tokenized stocks and Treasurys into live production. The same institutions that spent a decade dismissing crypto are now paying up to own the infrastructure, all pointed at tokenization and 24/7 markets.
Meanwhile, crypto majors fell alongside stocks as the chip selloff continued, with Bitcoin down 1% at $63,200 and Ethereum down 2.5% at $1,835. Polygon Labs announced layoffs as it pivots from a blockchain foundation to a payments company, with CEO Marc Boiron saying it’s in the final stage of acquiring Coinme and targeting profitability in 2027, according to a post.
Visa launched a stablecoin platform backing Open USD, piling competitive pressure on Circle as payment giants line up behind the 140-firm consortium, data shows. Galaxy launched institutional stablecoin-yield vaults targeting DeFi returns for institutions chasing yield on idle stablecoins. An open-standards body for AI payments also launched, aiming to build a financial system for AI bots to transact autonomously.
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