Hxro Raises $34M on Promise of Derivatives Trading Infrastructure for Solana

TradFi stalwart Susquehanna International Group and DeFi upstart Jump Crypto co-led the network’s latest token round.

AccessTimeIconNov 30, 2021 at 1:30 p.m. UTC
Updated May 11, 2023 at 6:02 p.m. UTC
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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.

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  • Also featuring Alameda Research, 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.

    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.

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    Danny Nelson

    Danny is CoinDesk's Managing Editor for Data & Tokens. He owns BTC, ETH and SOL.


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