Solana-based institutional derivatives hub Hxro Network raised $34 million from some of finance’s behind-the-scenes kingmakers.
Susquehanna International Group, a major (if hush-hush) traditional equities trading shop, co-led the round through its ventures wing, SIG DT, alongside Jump Crypto – Robinhood’s go-to firm for processing crypto trades – and Blockchain Capital, a crypto ventures firm.
Also featuring Alameda, Coinbase Ventures, Solana, the Chicago Trading Company and others, the round highlights how deep-pocketed investors are betting and building on the Solana ecosystem as a home for financial markets – not just crypto trades.
Hxro Network’s derivatives toolbox will feature protocols for futures, perpetual swaps, options and parimutuels, co-founder Dan Gunsberg told CoinDesk. Projects can plug into those protocols and spin up a limitless number of derivatives trading outposts.
Read more: Crypto Derivatives Firm Hxro Raises $15M From Macro Hedge Fund Commonwealth
That playbook has some precedent in the Solanaverse. Serum became a systemically important hub for Solana-based spot liquidity by making its central limit order book widely available. And Pyth, a data oracle service, is critical to myriad projects’ information feeds.
Hxro is “composable” with both, Gunsberg said.
Doing the same for derivatives – more specifically for derivatives that “professional” traders, not just crypto crowds, would touch – will likely require more than just accessibility. That’s part of the reason why Hxro will launch as a “permissioned” market by integrating with identity firm Civic, too.
“Right now open interest in the traditional world is close to $185 trillion,” Gunsberg said. Hxro is building for a world where much of that action moves over to crypto.
“Our belief is that to really establish a real footprint for decentralized derivatives” that can work at an institutional scale, “you need to have these types of firms that have the domain expertise,” Gunsberg said.
