Ex-Citadel execs elevate M for high-frequency crypto buying and selling platform

Ex-Citadel execs elevate $50M for high-frequency crypto buying and selling platform

by Jeremy

Cryptocurrency startup Portofino Applied sciences has formally launched its high-frequency buying and selling platform for digital belongings, securing main funding from enterprise capital companies within the course of. 

In launching its platform, Portofino disclosed that it had raised $50 million in fairness funding from Valar Ventures, World Founders Capital and Coatue. Though Portofino didn’t disclose how the funding will likely be used, the corporate has been lively on the hiring entrance, having recruited over 35 staff throughout 5 international places.

Portofino was based in 2021 by former Citadel Securities staff Alex Casimo and Leonard Lancia. The corporate is constructing crypto-focused high-frequency buying and selling know-how, which is principally utilized by hedge funds. Whereas the corporate is barely now popping out of stealth mode, it claims to have traded billions of {dollars} throughout centralized and decentralized crypto exchanges.

Excessive-frequency buying and selling, or HFT, refers to automated buying and selling platforms which are usually utilized by giant monetary establishments to execute a big batch of orders at extraordinarily excessive speeds. These platforms depend on advanced algorithms to research market tendencies and buying and selling alternatives that may be executed in seconds.

On the crypto entrance, HFT methods can now be executed on decentralized exchanges, or DEXs. Not like centralized exchanges, DEXs supply a lot sooner buying and selling speeds and new arbitrage alternatives. Portofino’s HFT know-how is trying to construct on these capabilities by growing entry to liquidity.

Associated: Fastened rates of interest to create a DeFi 2.0 for establishments, says former financial institution exec

Hedge funds and different institutional buyers have proven a eager curiosity in cryptocurrencies, however general adoption has been gradual as a result of a number of components, together with laws and an absence of infrastructure. Because the head of crypto funding supervisor Apollo Capital advised Cointelegraph:

“Nobody desires to be the primary into one thing like this. As a result of in the event you’re the primary one and issues go unsuitable, then there’s a profession danger. That may flip in some unspecified time in the future to the alternative.”