Citi, BNY Mellon and Wells Fargo invest in crypto technology companies

three of the world's leading banks-Citigroup, BNY Mellon and Wells Fargo-have joined a financing round for an American developer of cryptocurrency trade technology and highlighted the work that is currently being done on Wall Street to prepare for the increasing introduction of digital assets.

Serie B financing of USD 105 million, which is to be announced on Tuesday, the company called Talos with USD 1.25 billion. Under the leadership of the technology investor General Atlantic, the round also includes earlier supporters of Talos such as Fidelity Investments and the risk capital investors Andreessen Horowitz and PayPal Ventures.

The deal comes about, while the crypto prices fall and many of the great powers of traditional financial system are waiting for greater regulatory clarity to make decisive decisions on strategies for digital assets.

It shows that financial groups behind the scenes are looking for ways to make the crypto trade safer for institutional investors and to prepare for the prospect that traditional assets will take a digital form-as tokens that are based on blockchains, technology that is based on cryptocurrencies.

"We see crypto as the top of the spear," said Mike Demissie, Head of Digital Assets and Advanced Solutions at BNY Mellon, which has $ 45.5 trillion in assets and $ 2.3 trillion in managed assets. "Other types of assets are converted into tokens and made available on this type of infrastructure."

Talos occupies one of the less delicate corners of the crypto business and essentially builds computer installations for institutional investors who are responsible for completing trades on the best conditions for their customers. The offer helps customers to see the prices on leading stock exchanges and market makers in one place and to issue instructions for all phases of a trade - even for complex algorithmic.

"Our task is to ensure that our customers can connect," said Managing Director Anton Katz, an AM with a trained software engineer, whose previous experience he, as head of trade technology at AQR Capital Management, includes a hedge fund, and as a member of competitions, the Israeli rifle national team. "We are the rails."

Katz said that he assumes that Talos would deal with a greater diversity of digital assets in the coming years, since trading methods developed in the crypto business would be used in the traditional financial world.

"The experiments that take place in crypto do other investment classes to see what can be made more optimal, which can be done differently," he said. "The vast majority of our conversations with large institutions are currently literally revolving - what effects this technology will have on the existing ecosystem."

Aaron Goldman, Managing Director and Co-Head of Financial Services at General Atlantic, Talos was well positioned to grow, since the "casual" ways of the early crypto industry give way to more powerful investors with trust.

"We move away from an earlier era in which trades were carried out by calling their buddy and saying their customers that I am acting with her because I know that she has the best prices," said Goldman.

he added: "Now the market structure is developing. You have to show people that they were able to go on the market, to see different prices and to carry out the most efficient and most thoughtful way, and later you can go back, check and prove that you have received the best execution."