Crossover Markets's Brandon Mulvihill: Institutional Crypto Trading Is Moving Beyond the Exchange Model

As institutional participation in digital assets grows, the way firms trade is starting to change. Execution quality, access to liquidity and the separation of credit and execution are becoming increasingly important. Brandon Mulvihill, Co-Founder and CEO of Crossover Markets, spoke with Traders Magazine about what institutions should look for in a trading venue, the rise of prime brokerage and how he expects the crypto market structure to evolve.

Fee-inclusive execution costs are only one measure of venue quality. What other factors should institutional firms prioritize when evaluating where to trade digital assets?

True institutional buy-side clients are extremely focused on total cost to trade, which includes execution cost as well as cost of capital. The use of prime brokers is increasingly becoming the headline story, notably as bank-side custody comes online. The ability to trade across multiple liquidity points and net settle in one location brings enormous capital savings. At Crossover, we don’t believe any institution should bind themselves to a vertically integrated model that mandates credit and execution are married together. CROSSx wins trades based solely on the merit of our pricing and execution quality, without ever holding clients captive.