Ben Strack

<div id="highlights-block_62682e5970ef6" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Anthony Mazzarese and Brandon Mulvihill, former heads of foreign exchange prime brokerage at Jefferies, team up with Euronext FX CTO Vlad Rysin</li>
 <li>The company is finalizing its seed funding round and plans to launch later this year</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Three former traditional finance executives have teamed up to form the latest cryptocurrency exchange targeting institutional investors.&nbsp;



Anthony Mazzarese and Brandon Mulvihill, former heads of foreign exchange prime brokerage at Jefferies, have partnered with FastMatch co-founder Vlad Rysin to start Crossover Markets Group.



The co-founders realized the large barriers to entry for traditional institutional clients, such as questions around digital assets custody and the lack of institutional-only venues in the market, Mazzarese told Blockworks.



The business was designed to cater to traditional financial institutions and crypto-native firms looking for low-latency infrastructure, a customizable liquidity experience and 24/7 support.&nbsp;



“The retail crypto exchanges do a great job of filling some of the gap, but we believe the market is starved for more institutional-only focused counterparties,” Mazzarese said. “The increase in institutional demand is starting to outpace the available supply of viable venues.”



Crossover Markets Group is building its team for its official launch, which is slated for late summer or early fall. The company is finalizing its seed round of funding and plans to do a Series A round later this year.



Both Mazzarese and Mulvihill formerly worked at <a href="https://www.fxcm.com/markets/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">FXCM</a>, and Mazzarese was previously Citi’s head of foreign exchange margin sales in the Americas.    



Rysin co-founded FastMatch FX, an electronic trading venue in the spot foreign exchange market, in 2012.



Euronext acquired 90% of the company in 2017 for $153 million, and Rysin became the chief technology officer of the combined company. Prior to launching FastMatch, Rysin was the CTO of Credit Suisse’s fixed income clearing corporation division and head of core electronic trading.



“I share the notion that institutional clients entering crypto will require low-latency infrastructure, advanced order logic and deep liquidity in addition to a robust list of coins on offer,” he said in a statement. “While it is still very early for institutional clients joining crypto, we are building our exchange for the future and are excited to become a primary venue for digital assets.”



Institutional clients are not used to trading on cloud-based or locally hosted technology with limited support, Mazzarese said. They require response times measured in microseconds and reliable trade confirmations.



Rysin’s experience in building ultra-low latency exchanges for large financial institutions will allow Crossover Markets Group to come to the market with one of the fastest and most robust matching engines in crypto, he said.&nbsp;



“Our decision to build our product from scratch allows us to use the most cutting-edge technology, rather than rely on legacy tech that could be 10 or 15 years old already,” Mazzarese said. “We believe this is truly our differentiator.”



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Anthony Mazzarese

Ex-Jefferies Execs, Former Euronext FX CTO To Launch Crypto Exchange

<div id="highlights-block_623db5c6dfc0b" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Former legal counsel at Deutsche Bank joins Amber Group</li>
 <li>Ethereum scaling platform Polygon names a new chief information security officer</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Anthony Mazzarese and Brandon Mulvihill have left financial services company Jefferies to co-found a startup aiming to serve institutional clients in the crypto space.&nbsp;



Mazzarese was Jefferies’ global head of FX prime brokerage distribution, while Mulvihill served as its global head of FX prime brokerage. The two will now focus on bridging the gap between traditional financial services and digital assets through industrial-grade technology, trade flow expertise and attractive commercial terms, Mazzarese told Blockworks.



The former Jefferies executives are building a team and securing funding, he added. Additional details about the startup are set to come in the next few weeks.



Digital asset platform Amber Group appointed Ehsan Haque as its general counsel for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).



Haque joins Amber Group from his latest role as global head of legal and compliance for private equity firm Hamilton Capital Holdings. He has also recently worked as general counsel for investment technology platform AlphaSwap and Lending Block, an online digital asset lending and borrowing platform.&nbsp;



Earlier in his career, Haque was legal counsel for Deutsche Bank. He later joined Royal Bank of Scotland and was head of equities for Nomura’s EMEA legal department.



The hire follows Amber Group’s <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-trading-platform-amber-group-eclipses-3b-valuation-with-latest-raise/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">latest $200 million raise</a> last month led by Singaporean state holding company Temasek, giving the company a valuation of roughly $3 billion.



Web3 digital identity platform Unstoppable Domains hired Sajjad Rehman as its head of Europe and Nilkanth Iyer as its head of Asia.



Launched in 2018, Unstoppable Domains allows anyone to purchase a domain name that is minted as an NFT on the blockchain. It has more than 2 million registered NFT domains.



Rehman joins from Amazon-owned video livestreaming service Twitch, where he was vice president of business development for the EMEA region. Iyer previously held roles at software intelligence company CAST and tech goliath IBM.



The two executives will seek to help Unstoppable Domains onboard millions of new users to Web3 by partnering with wallets, exchanges and other industry players in Europe and Asia.



Mudit Gupta recently announced on Twitter that he would be joining Polygon as its chief information security officer.



Gupta also serves as an advisor at SushiSwap and a technical partner at Delta Blockchain Fund, according to his LinkedIn profile. He had worked for nearly three years as a senior solidity developer and then lead blockchain engineer for software development company Polymath.



“Polygon is the leading Ethereum scaling platform, and I&#8217;m stoked about our upcoming ZK rollups,” Gupta said in <a href="https://twitter.com/Mudit__Gupta/status/1505918543766122500" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a Monday tweet</a>. “Security has been a priority at Polygon, and I will be pushing it to the next level.”



Decentralized financial market infrastructure company Bosonic hired Paddy Boyle as its global head of clearing and derivatives. Founded in 2016, the firm offers infrastructure aiming to eliminate counterparty credit and settlement risk in digital asset markets.&nbsp;



Boyle was previously a partner at Goldman Sachs, where he spent 16 years as the investment bank’s global head of foreign exchange options. More recently, he was a managing director and global head of ForexClear at London-based clearing house LCH.



Former Treasurer of the United States Rosie Rios joined the board of directors of Unicorn Hunters, a platform that connects companies looking for expansion capital to achieve a billion-dollar valuation.



Rios’ experience will be key to Unicorn Hunters achieving its strategic objectives, which include making Unicoin the top equity-backed cryptocurrency in the world, the company announced Wednesday.



Unicoin, which <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/unicorn-hunters-introduce-unicoin-an-equity-backed-dividend-paying-cryptocurrency-as-a-solution-to-the-high-volatility-of-traditional-cryptocoins-301488540.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">launched last month</a>, pays dividends and is backed by equity in emerging high-growth companies.&nbsp;



The RLY Network Association hired Jeremiah Owyang as its chief marketing officer.



The non-profit supports the infrastructure and development of the RLY Network, which powers projects including Rally.io, Unite.io and SuperLayer.io.



Owyang is an advisor and angel investor in several early-stage startups, including blockchain gaming giant <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/metaverse-will-empower-creators-ceo-says/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Animoca Brands</a>. He also founded Catalyst Companies, a council for corporations that are seeking to innovate with new technologies.



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<ul class="wp-block-list">
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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch">0xResearch</a>: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst. </li>
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