Two Sigma, Flow Traders and Laser Digital back crypto trading venue CrossX

Digital assets trading firm Crossover Markets is launching a new trading venue, CrossX, to meet the liquidity requirements of institutions participating in the crypto markets.

The firm has received $6.35 million in a seed round from leading participants in the trading industry — including Two Sigma, Flow Traders, Wintermute Ventures and Nomura’s Laser Digital.

“As the digital assets space evolves, diverse and reliable execution venues for institutional trading are critical,” said Jeff Wecker, chief technology officer at Two Sigma. “We are excited to support a team with a track record of success in traditional finance in their effort to bring necessary technological innovation to the digital assets markets.”

Ultra-fast trading engine

Co-founded by traditional finance veterans Brandon Mulvihill and Anthony Mazzarese — who both spearheaded the FX prime brokerage business at Jefferies — the firm boasts that CrossX is “one of the fastest crypto trading engines in the world” with a sub-20 microsecond matching engine latency and throughput of millions of messages per second.

“CrossX is many times faster than typical crypto exchanges, providing clients access to the fastest pricing and trade executions,” the company said.

The trading venue decouples trade execution from custody and brokerage, which means institutions can select their credit counterparties, the company said. As an execution-only trading venue, it does not store client funds or carry counterparty risk.

CrossX will enable clients to create custom dark and lit liquidity pools, the company said. It will also support anonymous, disclosed and semi-disclosed trading.

Fees to trade on the platform are 0.01% for both makers and takers.

 “The CrossX ECN applies a tried-and-tested tradfi liquidity model to the digital assets industry,” said Damian Bunce, chief customer officer at Exness in the release. “As a major liquidity provider of crypto assets, we wanted to be an early investor in the project and team.”

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.