Citadel, Virtu, and others may be developing a crypto platform

Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss reports that Citadel, Virtu and others may be partnering up to develop a crypto platform.

Video Transcript

- Also, we got to talk about Citadel this morning, too, here.

- Yeah, we do. So Citadel Securities and Virtu Financial, they're partnering to build a cryptocurrency trading platform along with retail brokerages Fidelity and Charles Schwab. This is according to reports from CoinDesk and Bloomberg. As of now, product's still in early development but could be available as soon as late 2022, early 2023.

You guys, I also thought that there was an ironing here-- that we're talking about Citadel and Virtu a couple days after we were talking about potential new SEC regulations that could maybe [INAUDIBLE] some of their profit from retail stock trading. We're going to hear from Gary Gensler later today on that particular topic. But here they are, getting into cryptocurrency. What's als o of interest to me, Brad-- and I know you've covered this really closely-- is that they're working on this even as we have seen cryptocurrencies pull back so much that you still see this institutional building of these kinds of systems.

- Well, and that's what typically takes place in some of the larger crypto winters that we've seen of the past two. It's that you see more of this building out of the processes, or more of the blockchain protocols even come online at that point in time during some of these crypto winters. And then you see larger institutions decide where they're going to make some of their longer-term bets, where they're going to allocate everything from their own headcount and resources. And for some of that headcount at these companies, that means that you are extremely bullish in an environment where there are some job cuts being announced to still go out and say, we're going to dedicate resources to this right now.

I think it's interesting, though, what they did tell CoinDesk here as part of this-- the reports that had emerged. It's more of a crypto trading ecosystem or marketplace than an exchange, and it's going to take on the exchanges. And they're trying to build basically like a mousetrap here, is what they call it.

- Yeah, I was talking to couple crypto experts this morning, and it's generally-- they don't know what they're trying to build here. So it's unclear what this platform looks like. But the overall takeaway is this appears to be trying to establish deep liquidity in the crypto market, which is not necessarily important for retail investors but, of course, very important to institutional investors if they do decide to get into this.

- Yeah. I mean, if you have dark pools in the crypto market, then [INAUDIBLE]--

- Galaxy Digital-- they're telling me-- does already do something like this.

- Yeah, OK.