Crypto.com raises $400 million from Citadel Securities
Crypto.com raised $400 million from Citadel Securities, the market-making firm announced. The crypto exchange said it will use the capital to develop newer products, including prediction markets and tokenized real-world assets. The investment comes days after Crypto.com's prediction markets chief exited and weeks after it hired a former LSEG and OKX executive to lead its event-contracts buildout. The company previously relied on white-label partnerships with sportsbook operators.
The Citadel infusion gives Crypto.com the balance-sheet depth to build proprietary prediction-markets infrastructure rather than resell others' rails. That matters because DraftKings just terminated its white-label deal with Crypto.com to run DKeX in-house, and verticalization is squeezing the B2B middleman model that Crypto.com counted on.
The $400 million signals Citadel sees value in supplying liquidity to an in-house venue, not just routing flow through third parties. Crypto.com must convert this into a live product before Kalshi, Polymarket, and DraftKings lock in NFL-season liquidity. If it succeeds, Citadel's market-making muscle becomes a structural advantage; if it stalls, the capital becomes evidence Crypto.com missed the window to pivot from vendor to destination.