EDX Markets Raises $76 Million To Grow Its Institutional Crypto Exchange

Institutional crypto exchange EDX Markets raised $76 million in a Series C funding round led by Japan's SBI Holdings. The company will use the money to build new products and expand beyond the US market. What stands out here is not the check size but who wrote it. Traditional Wall Street players keep putting money into crypto infrastructure even as venture funding across the crypto industry has dropped sharply this year.

What is EDX Markets, and who backed it before this round?

EDX Markets launched in 2023 with backing from Citadel Securities, Fidelity Digital Assets, Charles Schwab, Paradigm, and Sequoia Capital. The pitch was straightforward. The company wanted to give large banks and funds a crypto trading venue that runs on the rules of traditional finance rather than a retail exchange. Clients connect through direct membership or a broker, not a plain account with a password. Unlike retail platforms, EDX is open only to accredited institutions, so it competes more with venues like CME's futures markets than with the exchanges retail traders know.

The platform runs spot trading in the US and, through a Singapore arm, offers perpetual futures to eligible institutional clients outside the country. Trading on EDX centers on Bitcoin and Ethereum, and the company says daily volume has reached as much as $685 million. That figure already matters to banks and funds deciding where to route a crypto order. Its client base includes hedge funds, market makers, and trading desks at traditional banks.

How does splitting trading from custody actually work?

The idea did not come out of nowhere. The 2022 collapse of FTX showed that when one company runs trading and holds client funds at the same time, its bankruptcy can freeze or wipe out other people's assets overnight. EDX is built so that risk is structurally ruled out from the start.

The main difference between EDX and retail crypto exchanges is that the exchange itself never holds client assets. Trading, clearing, and custody sit in separate legal entities, with a central clearinghouse standing between them.

The clearinghouse plays the role that structures like the DTCC or options clearing corporations play in traditional markets. It guarantees a trade settles even if one counterparty suddenly goes bankrupt or fails to deliver. The client's funds never sit on the exchange's own balance sheet.

• A clearinghouse settles trades between buyer and seller instead of the exchange itself
• Custody of client assets sits in a separate regulated entity
• Clients trade through a broker or direct membership rather than holding a wallet on the exchange
• The setup mirrors how stock and futures markets have worked for decades
• Regulated clearing also makes audits simpler, since a supervisor can see settlement through one central node instead of dozens of wallets

What will the new funding round pay for?

In April, EDX applied for a national trust bank charter through the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. If approved, a separate entity called EDX Trust would directly provide regulated custody, clearing, settlement, and risk management for crypto clients, without bringing in an outside custodian. OCC reviews of this kind typically take several months, so a final decision isn't expected before the end of the year.

That charter would put EDX alongside Anchorage Digital and BitGo, which already hold federal trust bank status. A federal OCC charter carries another advantage. It applies across all 50 states at once and removes the need to collect separate money transmitter licenses state by state. For an institutional client, it means one regulated partner instead of a chain running through an exchange, a broker, and an external custodian.

Earlier this year, the company launched FlowConnect, a crypto-as-a-service product that lets banks and brokers offer crypto trading to their own customers without building the infrastructure themselves. The new round will fund exactly this kind of product work and international growth, the company said.

Why does Japan's SBI Holdings want a US institutional crypto exchange?

SBI Holdings has spent years steadily building out its crypto footprint. Its SBI VC Trade unit gives Japanese clients access to Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin, while SBI Shinsei Trust Bank and Startale Group launched a yen-denominated stablecoin called JPYSC. Last month, the holding agreed to buy crypto exchange Bitbank for 46.7 billion yen, roughly $289 million.

In June, Japan's parliament passed a crypto law that clears the way for crypto ETFs and cuts the tax on crypto income to 20%. That makes SBI's buying spree easy to read. The holding is positioning itself before a lighter regulatory regime pulls more money into the market. SBI Holdings is not a narrow crypto startup. It is a large Japanese financial conglomerate with its own brokerage, banking, and insurance arms, so its crypto bet is backed by a far wider balance sheet than a typical industry player's.

In May, EDX integrated with Ripple Prime, giving institutional clients access to EDX's spot and futures liquidity through Ripple's prime brokerage. The companies also plan to use RLUSD as a settlement and collateral asset, which opens XRP holders another route into institutional liquidity.

What does this round mean for the institutional crypto market?

$76 million is not a record sum for the 2026 crypto market. But the list of names behind it points to something bigger. Banks, brokers, and trust companies keep building crypto infrastructure as if it is a matter of when, not if. Regulated clearing, banking charters, and stablecoin partnerships are turning crypto trading into something that looks more and more like the stock market, just with different assets. For anyone holding Bitcoin or Ethereum, that means one thing: the institutional liquidity sitting behind exchange prices is getting more transparent and better insulated from any single firm's collapse.