CrossTower Launches Capital Markets Desk

January. 13, 2021 - CrossTower, a leading global digital asset infrastructure platform formed in 2020 serving institutional and professional traders, announced today it has launched CrossTower Capital Markets, a new division to compliment its exchange business; it also hired a prominent capital markets veteran to head up this new business line.

CrossTower Capital Markets is the culmination of more than two years of work and was built in response to client demand to initially include the following:

  • Digital asset lending and trade financing

  • Asset origination: Structured products and fund offerings

  • Best execution across multiple venues including a digital asset trading platform

Structured products and fund offerings are used by investors in traditional markets to customise exposure and risk, and the introduction of these products to this emerging asset class represents a significant leap forward in building the infrastructure required for institutional adoption of digital assets. CrossTower will be the first digital asset firm to offer an exchange, structured products and funds with lending and trade financing, creating a full financial ecosystem for traditional firms.

“We have a crypto-first, end-to-end solution built for sophisticated traders in a complex, fragmented market,” said Kristin Boggiano, co-founder and president of CrossTower. “By applying traditional markets principles to digital assets, we have created a suite of products sorely missing from this space and are eager to fill that pent up demand.”

To head this new business, CrossTower is also excited to announce the addition of 20+ year securities industry pro Greg Bunn as Chief Strategy Officer. Greg joins after most recently serving as global head of counterparty strategy and central funding at Citadel; and after more than 16 years in various senior roles at Deutsche Bank, the most recent being global head of prime finance overseeing more than $400 billion of the securities financing business; and five years at KPMG in South Africa.

‘From my experience, institutional adoption of digital assets is in its early stages and mainstreaming this growth requires an ecosystem and infrastructure,” said Bunn. “CrossTower is solving a number of inefficiencies in these markets, and I’m personally looking forward to addressing the needs of sophisticated players in the space.”

This new division was built with institutions in mind with the products and services family offices, hedge funds, pensions, endowments, insurance companies and professional traders expect, while also taking into account the unique needs of digital and crypto asset markets including OTC desks, miners and more. Asset coverage includes the top 10 most liquid coins and tokens, and will expand as clients seek more options.

“Greg joining to lead this effort shows our passion and commitment to developing this market for sophisticated market participants,” said CrossTower CEO Kapil Rathi. “We plan to further expand our offering to meet this growing demand, and have a number of exciting announcements to share in the coming months.”

In June 2020, Crosstower completed a $6 million seed funding round led by Gerard Lopez, an early investor in Skype and one of the major technology investors in Europe. In December 2020, Crosstower was added to the Blockfills crypto ECN as a Liquidity Provider.