Citadel Securities Invests $400M in Crypto.com at $20B Valuation

Citadel Securities invested $400 million in Crypto.com at a $20 billion valuation, the firms announced Thursday. The capital will support Crypto.com’s expansion into tokenized securities and derivatives built on blockchain rails.

The funding is Crypto.com’s first institutional round in roughly a decade. Crypto.com co-founder and chief executive Kris Marszalek commented, “We are thrilled to work with Citadel Securities to continue driving the crypto industry into a new era of institutionalization. The size of the opportunity in front of us is staggering, as crypto increasingly becomes the rails for finance.”

Citadel Securities described the investment as part of its strategy to back firms building digital-asset market infrastructure. Recent transactions involving Citadel include a $200 million investment in Kraken in November at a $20 billion valuation, participation in a $500 million strategic round in Ripple that valued the company at about $40 billion, and backing for Digital Asset. Citadel also maintains an execution partnership with tokenization firm Alpaca and participated in Alpaca’s $150 million Series D round.

Crypto.com expanded its product set in mid-2026 by launching Tokenized Stocks in its core app, offering tokenized exposure to dozens of U.S. equities and ETFs. The company issues branded Visa prepaid and credit cards and operates a venture arm that increased its fund to $500 million in 2022.

Outside funding for Crypto.com has been limited before this round. The company raised about $13 million in an early-stage round, completed undisclosed Series A and angel financings, and raised roughly $26.7 million through a 2017 initial coin offering when it operated as Monaco. In 2020 Crypto.com deprecated the MCO token and consolidated its ecosystem under the CRO token via a token swap.

In 2025, Trump Media & Technology Group acquired about 2% of the circulating CRO supply under a strategic partnership; Crypto.com bought $50 million of Trump Media stock. Trump Media is involved in a SPAC transaction to form Trump Media Group CRO Strategy, Inc., which aims to build a CRO treasury.

Jim Esposito, president of Citadel Securities, stated, “The convergence of traditional financial markets and digital asset infrastructure is an exciting evolution with the potential to further improve market efficiency. Crypto.com has built a foundation to support the continued institutionalization of the digital asset market, and we are pleased to collaborate with the Crypto.com team as we help create the capital markets of the future.”

Crypto.com confirmed it will use the new capital to scale products for institutional and retail clients while competing with public exchanges that have larger market capitalizations.