NEW YORK (Reuters) – Ken Griffin, the billionaire founder of Citadel Securities, one of many world’s largest market-making companies, stated on Monday he envisions the corporate getting into the cryptocurrency market as a mixture of a liquidity supplier and an change.
“Given the institutional enhance in curiosity in cryptocurrency, I feel it is cheap to anticipate to see us be extra concerned within the crypto area offering liquidity to institutional and probably retail traders,” Griffin stated on the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles.
While some market makers – companies that present market liquidity by streaming purchase and promote quotes for others to commerce towards – akin to Virtu Financial, Jump Trading and DRW, have embraced the nascent asset class, Citadel Securities has largely stayed on the sidelines.
Griffin in October known as cryptocurrencies “a jihadist name that we do not imagine within the greenback.”
But on Monday he stated that whereas he’s skeptical about cryptocurrencies, he has to stay with the truth that an asset is price what folks understand it’s price.
“I additionally gather American abstract art,” he stated. “Why is a portray price $10 million? It’s oil on canvas. So value is within the eyes of the beholder.”
Citadel Securities, which after a funding spherical in January was valued at practically $22 billion, just isn’t dashing its entry into the crypto market, as a result of it desires to guarantee very excessive requirements round issues like anti-money-laundering, Griffin stated.
The firm will intention to present liquidity to the crypto market, however Griffin additionally stated Citadel Securities believes crypto change expertise is “essential” in serving to to carry patrons and sellers collectively.
(Reporting by John McCrank in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
