Institutional Crypto Platform Talos Emerges From Stealth Mode

Oct 1, 2020 at 11:00 UTCUpdated Oct 1, 2020 at 13:50 UTC.In the latest effort to smooth a path for buttoned-up investors, Talos, an institutional-grade conduit to the crypto ecosystem, is emerging from stealth mode to serve brokers, custodians, exchanges and over-the-counter trading desks.

The platform started out in 2018 and is backed by an impressive list of investors including Autonomous Partners, Castle Island Ventures, Coinbase Ventures and Initialized Capital.

Over the past year or so, Talos has been quietly onboarding a core group of capital market participants so that the platform can make its debut in a revenue-generating state, said Anton Katz, the firm's co-founder and CEO."It's not that we were really hiding, but it's just that we come from a capital markets background and would tend to shy away from talking about things before they are ready; when you're selling to institutions that can be frowned upon," Katz said in an interview.

Talos provides tools to support clients through the full trading lifecycle, from price discovery through to clearing and settlement, the company said.

"One of the biggest keys to widespread institutional adoption of digital assets is a technology infrastructure that unites all market participants and gives them the confidence to operate at scale," Arianna Simpson, founder of Autonomous Partners, said in a statement.

The design requirements for crypto platforms are quite different from regular capital markets, Katz explained.

On the pre-trade side of things, when compared to capital markets the data being collected for crypto is a lot less reliable and has to be collected in multiple places and cleaned properly.

In terms of trading there are things like a treasury management aspect, so moving capital between different exchanges, which again is something that doesn't really exist in capital markets.

While on the post-trade side, capital markets are much more secure and standardized.

"I would say you don't have to be as defensive when you're building your platforms in capital markets as you do in crypto," said Katz.