Crypto.com Is Now Worth $20 Billion — Citadel Securities Just Made It Official With A $400 Million Check

Singapore-based digital asset exchange Crypto.com (CRO) disclosed Thursday it has closed a $400 million investment from Citadel Securities — one of Wall Street’s largest and most influential market makers — valuing the exchange at $20 billion. 

Crypto.com Wants Tokenized Securities, Derivatives 

The funding, according to Crypto.com’s disclosure, is intended to accelerate the exchange’s expansion into tokenized securities, derivatives, and other asset classes beyond crypto — a direction that positions it more as a full-spectrum financial platform than a standalone crypto exchange. 

Kris Marszalek, Crypto.com’s co-founder and CEO, framed the investment in those terms, saying crypto is “increasingly becoming the rails for finance” and that the company has spent the last decade building the regulatory and technical infrastructure to capture what he described as the next wave of growth across all asset classes.

Thrilled to announce our first institutional funding round with a $400 million strategic investment from Citadel Securities valuing https://t.co/pFc4Pz8PQj at $20 billion. An incredible milestone 10 years in on our journey and the beginning of a new phase of growth. Grateful to…

— Kris (@kris) July 16, 2026

Jim Esposito, President of Citadel Securities, pointed to market efficiency as the rationale behind the funding. “The convergence of traditional financial markets and digital asset infrastructure is an exciting evolution with the potential to further improve market efficiency,” he said, adding that Crypto.com had built the foundation needed to support the continued institutionalization of the digital asset market.

CRO Surged 6% On The News 

Crypto.com was founded in 2016 and has grown into one of the largest crypto exchanges globally by user base, with over 150 million users across more than 90 countries as of its most recent public disclosures. 

The exchange holds regulatory licenses in multiple jurisdictions, including the European Union (EU) under the new Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regime, the United Kingdom (UK), Singapore, and the United States. 

The exchange has been among the more aggressive crypto firms in pursuing mainstream brand recognition — most notably through a $700 million naming rights deal for the Staples Center in Los Angeles, now known as Crypto.com Arena. 

Crypto.com’s native cryptocurrency, CRO, gained 6% on the news, reaching $0.059 according to CoinGecko data — though CRO remains 93% below its all-time high of $0.89.

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