XTX Plans Crypto Expansion Despite Its Founder’s Dislike for Digital Assets

Dec 9, 2022

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(Bloomberg) -- XTX Markets has become the last major global market maker to take the plunge into crypto despite its founder’s dislike for the digital asset space.

Chief Executive Officer Alex Gerko tweeted on Friday that the company has filled one of the four crypto positions advertised in October. The roles are on the operations team and trading desk, and based in London and Singapore. The company began trading crypto in recent months, according to a person familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified because the information isn’t public.

Gerko is known for being skeptical about crypto and has even written “pretty virulently anti-crypto it seems” into his Twitter profile. The Russian-born mathematician founded London-based XTX seven years ago, and the firm now handles almost $300 billion in daily volume across equities, commodities, currency and fixed income.

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In a posting for a still-open position on the operations team, the company said it’s expanding to support round-the-clock crypto trading. A spokesman for XTX declined to comment.

XTX’s competitors have been active in the crypto space for years. Virtu Financial Chief Executive Officer Douglas Cifu said earlier this month that it saw no losses stemming from the unraveling of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto exchange.

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