Crossover Markets is bringing CROSSx, the only execution-only crypto electronic communication network (ECN) for institutions, is launching in the U.S as regulatory certainty increases and believes it will have a first mover advantage.

On 18 June 2025 Crossover said in a statement that U.S.-domiciled institutions are authorised to trade select spot cryptocurrencies on CROSSx ECN, with the platform due to become operational in the U.S in the third quarter of this year.

Brandon Mulvihill, co-founder and chief executive at Crossover Markets Group, told Markets Media that all three co-founders are U.S. citizens and eight of the current team of 12 are physically domiciled in the country, so it was always a market that the firm wanted to enter. However, there was a lack of regulatory clarity and the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission was hostile to crypto under the previous administration, but that Mulvihill said the climate has changed.

The House Committee on Financial Services in the U.S Congress has announced that the week of 14 July 2025 will be “Crypto Week” as legislators consider the Genius Act for stablecoins and the Clarity Act for digital asset market infrastructure.

Mulvihill added: ”The Clarity Act is the biggest game changer for the U.S. market since ETFs. We have a very good feel for the bill and we feel a lot more comfortable in coming to the U.S.”

In addition the Genius Act will provide a federal national framework for stablecoins, which Mulvihill said will give institutions more confidence to step into crypto markets.

Anthony Mazzarese, co-founder and chief commercial officer, who has led Crossover’s London office since he opened it two years ago, has relocated to the U.S. to support the firm’s expansion.

Mazzarese said in a statement: “For multiple reasons, the United States has suddenly become the center of the crypto universe, and the demand we are seeing from institutions across the spectrum here is staggering. We are actively building out our corporate infrastructure to meet this demand.”

CROSSx

Crossover Markets was launched in 2002 with the intention of bringing expertise from traditional finance into cryptocurrency for institutions. In June 2024 the firm raised $12m in its Series A funding round led by venture capital firms Illuminate Financial and DRW Venture Capital, who joined strategic investors including Flow Traders and Laser Digital and some retail brokers.

The ECN went live nearly two years ago in the summer of 2023. Approximately 85 institutional clients outside the U.S are now live on CROSSx, according to Mulvihill.

As an ECN, CROSSx combines sub-20 microsecond matching engine latency, quote-driven matching technology with complex interaction rules and smart order routing and maker and taker interactions that are customized based on flow characteristics and unique liquidity needs. Mulvihill believes this is a competitive advantage over the traditional central limit order book (CLOB) model used by all other crypto trading venues.

He acknowledges that as crypto becomes more regulated, competition is likely to increase with traditional finance firms offering trading capabilities.

“For sure, there will be copycats but we think being a first mover is our defensive moat,” Mulvihill added. “We built our technology from scratch which puts us in pole position to become the primary institutional market.”

The reason that other crypto marketplaces operate a central limit order book is because it is the easiest type of matching engine to build, according to Mulvihill. He said: “We are probably one iteration away from ChatGPT being able to build someone a central limit order book.”

Mulvihill also claimed that even if people with experience in equities or foreign exchange try to build a crypto ECN, it is really hard to adapt the source code for traditional venues to 24/7 trading without introducing latency.

Vladislav Rysin, co-founder and chief technology officer at Crossover Markets has built, operated and sold venues across multiple asset classes, including FastMatch for foreign exchange, which was sold to Euronext for almost $200m. Crossover also has a specialized team of C++ developers,  who Mulvihill described as “the world’s best.”

CROSSx is defined by 2.7 million lines of fully proprietary code, according to a blog. The firm made 80 software releases last year and over 11.2 million code changes, en route to processing 126 petabytes of data. The blog said: “We have achieved all this while maintaining our benchmark of 99% of orders matched in single-digit microseconds.”

Last year over $13.5bn in notional value traded on CROSSx according to the firm, as 3.1 million trades were matched against 504 billion quotes. Mulvihill said volumes in the year to date are already nearly equal to the whole of 2024, partly due to market volatility and partly due to organic growth.

“We know that our numbers are going to double in the next 18 months, even without the expansion in the U.S,” he added.

Another data point that is important to Mulivihill is the number of trades executed on a daily basis.

“If you’re doing lots of trades consistently every day, that’s a good sign of a healthy platform versus a few big trades,” he said. “We are pacing about 400 to 500 trades a day.”

He continued that volume is a lagging indicator and a better indication of future business is the number of platinum accounts on the platform, which the firm does not publicly disclose. Platinum accounts are based on the client’s total amount of daily trading, regardless of how much is executed on CrossX.

“If we can onboard platinum accounts to compete for their trades, that will be good for us,” said Mulvihill. “We have grown the number of platinum accounts on the platform threefold, so we feel pretty confident that volumes will continue to grow exponentially.”

Another competitive advantage, according to Mulvihill, is that the firm is a leader in crypto for best execution practices. More clients are discussing topics such as market impact, how orders are routed, how they are matched, fill ratios and the response time from market makers. CrossX ranks market makers in real time based on their performance.

“We spend a lot more time educating crypto-native firms on how best execution works and why it is important, but it is becoming a competitive advantage,” said Mulvihill. “If people keep looking to the past for how crypto trading will work in the future, they are going to be greatly mistaken.”

In addition to bringing traditional finance expertise into digital assets, CrossX is designed to benefit from the possibility of 24/7 trading across traditional asset classes.

Market infrastructure

Mulvihill described the business models of centralized exchanges in crypto as captive models which want clients to execute all their trades on that venue, which then bundles up all the fees in order to charge as much as possible. Prime brokerage and central clearing models are advancing, creating fungibility and exposing execution venues that hold clients captive.

In contrast, CrossX’s expansion into the U.S is supported by prime brokerage partners, Hidden Road (upon completion of its acquisition by Ripple) and BitGo, bringing fungibility and liquidity across multiple trading venues.

Mulvihill said: “Market structure is strengthening. Hidden Road allows institutions to trade across dozens of liquidity sources, but nets settlement so it is not a coincidence that Hidden Road is being acquired by Ripple.”

In April this year, stablecoin issuer Ripple announced it is acquiring Hidden Road for $1.25bn, representing one of the largest deals in the digital assets space. With the acquisition, Ripple said it will become the first crypto company to own and operate a global, multi-asset prime broker.

Noel Kimmel, president of Hidden Road, said in a statement that a market structure consisitng of an anonymous ECN supported by a prime broker is already widely understood by capital markets participants operating in traditional asset classes, and is likely the reason for increased interest in the execution-only model. Hidden Road clears $3 trillion annually across markets with more than 300 institutional customers.

Kimmel said: “We’re excited to see our longtime partner continue to grow, which shares our commitment to institutionalizing the digital asset market structure, and we look forward to jointly servicing Hidden Road’s existing foreign exchange and fixed income clients who are seeking to expand into digital assets.”

In addition, multiple tier-one banks are launching crypto custody offerings. Mulvihill believes quantitative hedge funds, market makers and other institutions will want to participate in a fungible model, which plays to CrossX’s strengths. He said: “We are not a broker, we don’t hold the client captive and we don’t custody assets.”

In order for crypto trading to scale, Mulvihill said that regulated market structure is needed, as well as prime brokerage infrastructure with players like Hidden Road and dozens of others.

“These two things are happening simultaneously,” he said. “You’re going to see total industry volumes grow by at least one order of magnitude and commissions compress.”

Consultancy Crisil Coalition Greenwich said in a report, Digital asset trading 2025: A market in transition, that the crypto market is undergoing a significant transition, evolving from its adolescent phase to a more regulated, mature and sophisticated stage as institutional traders are driving the demand for more advanced infrastructure and products.

David Easthope, senior analyst who heads up fintech research on the market structure and technology team at Crisil Coalition Greenwich, said in the report: “The market is shifting toward a more robust and institutional-grade landscape, with firms like Bullish, LMAX Digital, Zodia, EDX Markets, Crossover, Coinbase, and Kraken providing upgraded venues, and BitGo, Galaxy Digital, Hidden Road, FalconX, and Coinbase building out prime brokerage operations. Custodians like Etana, Anchorage, BitGo, and Copper also have aspirations to further build out institutional offerings to support the full trading life cycle, including in settlement and collateral movement.”