Arbelos currently operates overseas through the British Virgin Islands. The company is also seeking regulatory licenses from financial authorities in the region to allow it to operate without restrictions while complying with local laws.
Joshua Lim and Shiliang Tang, cryptocurrency veterans who previously worked at Circle Financials and LedgerPrime, a digital asset hedge fund acquired by FTX before its collapse in November 2022, successfully raised $28 million in a funding round led by Dragonfly Capital. . It is the best investment company in the industry.
Other big names in the industry also participated in the round, including their former employers, according to a Fortune report Wednesday, citing an interview with the duo. These companies are FalconX, Circle, Paxos, Polygon, and Deribit.
Open new horizons with Arbelos Markets
The two cryptocurrency veterans plan to use the funds to launch a digital asset trading platform known as Arbelos Markets. The company will officially debut in the third quarter of 2023, but has been shrouded in secrecy until now.
However, with its latest round of funding, Arbelos plans to expand its services to facilitate the buying and selling of cryptocurrency digital assets. Once complete, the platform will specialize in derivatives trading and provide liquidity to customers.
The move aims to position the company to compete directly with companies such as Jane Street Capital and Cumberland, which are affiliates of DRW.
Lim and Tang told Fortune that the platform is committed to protecting investor interests through a robust risk management infrastructure. Building on past market turmoil, Arbelos aims to avoid the pitfalls that befell big names like Three Arrows Capital (3AC) and FTX during the 2022 market downturn.
“As cryptocurrencies grow into a global asset class, there is a need for sophisticated fundamental risk dealers who can broker transactions. We hope to be able to provide the infrastructure for this,” Lim said.
Advocate for transparency and compliance
According to a report in Fortune, Arbelos will only serve institutional players that provide derivatives and over-the-counter services to investors.
Lim and Tang said the platform would focus on building a “transparency engine” to address transparency issues in emerging economies. The tool leverages on-chain capabilities to provide customers with valuable insights, including portfolio composition. Users can also track their assets to know where their funds are and access the platform’s risk profile.
The company has a small staff of 12, most of whom are in engineering. These employees have quantitative trading experience.
Arbelos currently operates overseas through the British Virgin Islands. The company is also seeking regulatory licenses from financial authorities in the region to allow it to operate without restrictions while complying with local laws. The cryptocurrency derivatives platform will not be accessible to U.S. traders at launch due to regulatory uncertainty in that region. To date, the company has achieved an impressive $25 billion in notional trading volume since its soft launch in 2023.
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