Market makers are essential for crypto exchanges. Infima Capital's CEO said new firms are rarer than other crypto business startups.
According to a reviewed pitch deck, former employees of Nexo have left to start a new market-making company called Infima Capital. News.
Tom Stanev, Nexo's former head of trading, will lead the new operation.
A spokesperson for Nexo, a crypto lender and exchange, confirmed News Stanev and a group of former staff left.
Others joining Stanev are former Nexo engineering director Stefan Bonev and former Nexo product manager Lora Zlateva. Infima Capital already has more than 40 employees on deck.
Latest opportunities
Market makers, also known as liquidity providers or speed-trading firms, typically provide returns by using algorithms to take advantage of price gaps in assets traded between multiple platforms.
A staple of stock markets, market makers help facilitate crypto trading by taking the other side of the transaction when users buy or sell tokens on an exchange.
New market makers don't pop up as often as a new blockchain or NFT collection, when necessary for the day-to-day operations of exchanges.
“This is very rare,” says Stanev, CEO of Infima Capital News.
Join the community to get our latest articles and updates
Stanev's planned launch of his market-making firm is due to speed-trading giants Jump Crypto and Jane Street. retreat from the industry.
The firm said the US Securities and Exchange Commission's recent approval of both spot bitcoin and ethereum exchange-traded funds helped.
“The ETF passage and resolution of some of the biggest legislative actions from the past years have brought new opportunities to the market,” read the deck.
A partner
Infima has secured a $5 million investment from an unnamed partner, according to Deck.
Stanev declined to disclose his organization's backers.
“We have commitments from several counterparties, which I will keep confidential for now as we are still in the raising phase and nothing is set in stone,” he said.
According to Deck, the partner will provide Infima Capital with a $100 million line of credit for market making and “market-neutral strategies.”
The partner will also transfer a portion of its trading volume to the new market maker.
Stanev said News Infima Capital was a “passion project” during his time at Nexo.
His new company plans to trade post-launch on more than 10 exchanges and provide liquidity or front funds for DeFi protocols.
Ben Weiss is the Dubai correspondent News. Got a tip? Email him [email protected].