$1T Per Year: Building the Leading Crypto Prime Broker with FalconX
Regulatory clarity turned on the firehose. FalconX moved ~$1T last year with 25 back-office staff — a 10× efficiency edge born of tokenization.
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Raghu Yarlagadda is the Co-founder and CEO of FalconX, the leading institutional digital asset prime brokerage. In the last year, FalconX has done $1 trillion in trading volume across spot and derivatives.
FalconX is an incredible success story, starting early and growing alongside broader institutional adoption of crypto and digital assets. With current regulatory tailwinds, the company is extremely well positioned to accelerate growth even further.
FalconX has raised nearly $500m, most recently at an $8 billion valuation, from investors including Accel, GIC, B Capital, Altimeter, Thoma Bravo, Tiger Global, Lightspeed, Wellington and many more.
Please enjoy the following insights from Raghu Yarlagadda.
ETFs flipped the switch for institutional crypto adoption.
Institutional adoption surged after ETF approvals in 2024, and bitcoin reached true escape velocity.
🎬 Watch: ETF → legitimacy → institutional flood
https://youtube.com/shorts/cvHgRr4pOcI?feature=share
Who’s actually trading? Five personas.
- Hedge funds/prop traders
- Market makers
- Corporate treasuries & PIPEs
- ETFs
- Banks, brokers and fintechs enabling retail access
~40% of new crypto flow now enters via ETFs and corporate channels.
🎬 Watch: The 5 institutional personas moving the market
https://youtube.com/shorts/fKvRJa9eAn8?feature=share
Spot vs. derivatives: the market has evolved.
Derivatives now dominate volumes, and the market has matured beyond BTC+ETC dominance.
- Within spot, BTC+ETH = ~40–60% depending on alt cycles
- In derivatives, alts trend even higher, especially in risk-on periods
🎬 Watch: Why derivatives are the new center of gravity
https://youtube.com/shorts/c0a4EOd2s5Q?feature=share
Tokenization’s first breakout was stablecoins.
Stablecoins initially solved nights and weekends settlement. Now, they’re being adopted in cross-border B2B and FX. FalconX’s FX business is up ~5× YoY, driven by the settlement efficiency of stablecoins. Fixed income and private credit look like the next big tokenized asset waves.
🎬 Watch: Stablecoins weren’t the end state — they’re the opening act
https://youtube.com/shorts/UzdiuYoY9uA?feature=share
Regulatory clarity will bring 2–3× more growth.
GENIUS + market-structure progress unlock compliance comfort. With increasing regulatory clarity, expect institutional activity in crypto to explode.
🎬 Watch: Clarity brings the allocators — and new market dynamics
https://youtube.com/shorts/V5H1Ux49n2I?feature=share
The efficiency wedge (60/30/10).
FalconX settled ~$1T with ~25 ops staff vs. ~280 at a leading bank for similar complexity. The efficiency advantages come from: 60% tokenized assets/shared-ledger vs. traditional assets/rails, 30% tech-first DNA/no legacy systems, 10% being lean.
🎬 Watch: How tokenization creates operating leverage
https://youtube.com/shorts/-xZWUXRJxj0?feature=share
AI will be powered by crypto rails.
Crypto infrastructure has matured to institutional scale. Tokenization makes financial markets cheap and fast. AI will touch most transactions, and vice versa — requiring the 24/7, programmable rails that crypto has built.
🎬 Watch: AI, tokenization, and finance at the speed of the internet
https://youtube.com/shorts/7Zea8hao9Kg?feature=share
🎬 Watch the Full Episode
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