Citadel Securities Invests $400 Million in Crypto.com at $20 Billion Valuation

Crypto.com has secured a $400 million strategic investment from Citadel Securities, its first institutional funding round in ten years of operation, pricing the exchange at a $20 billion valuation. The proceeds are directed at expanding the platform beyond pure crypto into tokenised securities, derivatives, and other asset classes.

For Citadel Securities, this marks a second stake in a major retail crypto exchange within twelve months, following its participation in Kraken’s $800 million round in November 2025 alongside Jane Street and DRW, also at a $20 billion valuation. That pattern represents a meaningful shift from the firm’s earlier approach, which concentrated digital-asset exposure through EDX Markets, the non-custodial, institution-facing exchange it co-founded with Fidelity and Charles Schwab.

The transaction sits within a broader wave of traditional finance capital moving into crypto venues. Intercontinental Exchange took a minority stake in OKX at a $25 billion valuation in March, pairing that with a distribution arrangement that routes NYSE tokenised equities and ICE futures to OKX’s 120 million accounts. Deutsche Börse followed in April with a $200 million investment in Kraken’s parent company Payward. Korean securities firms and Japan’s SBI have similarly been acquiring positions in domestic and regional retail crypto platforms, suggesting the strategic logic is now operating across multiple jurisdictions simultaneously.