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Currently, Arbelos operates offshore through the British Virgin Islands. The company is also seeking a regulatory license from financial authorities in the region to enable it to operate without restrictions in compliance with local laws.
Joshua Lim and Shiliang Tang, two crypto veterans who previously worked at Circle Financials and LedgerPrime, a digital asset hedge fund acquired by FTX before its collapse in November 2022, have successfully raised $28 million in a funding round led by Dragonfly Capital, one of the leading investment companies in the industry.
According to a Fortune report on Wednesday citing an interview with the duo, the round saw participation from other notable companies in the industry including their former employers. These companies are FalconX, Circle, Paxos, Polygon, and Deribit.
Venturing into New Horizons with Arbelos Markets
The two crypto veterans plan to use the funds to launch a digital asset trading platform known as Arbelos Markets. Although the company officially debuted in the third quarter of 2023, it has been shrouded in secrecy until now.
However, with the recent funding, Arbelos will be expanding its services to facilitate the buying and selling of crypto digital assets. Once completed, the platform will specialize in derivatives trading, and providing liquidity to customers.
The move aims to position the company in direct competition with the likes of Jane Street Capital and Cumberland, a unit of DRW.
Lim and Tang told Fortune that the platform will be committed to protecting investor interests through robust risk management infrastructures. Drawing from past market tumults, Arbelos aims to steer clear of pitfalls that befell prominent companies like Three Arrows Capital (3AC) and FTX during the 2022 market downturn.
“As crypto matures to become a global asset class, it requires sophisticated primary dealers of risk that can sit and intermediate trades. We’re hopefully supplying the infrastructure to do that,” Lim said.
Championing Transparency and Compliance
As per Fortune’s report, Arbelos will only cater to institutional players providing the investors with derivatives and over-the-counter services.
Lim and Tang said the platform will also focus on building a “transparency engine”, to address transparency issues in the emerging economy. The tool will leverage on-chain capabilities to furnish clients with vital insights including portfolio composition. Users will also be able to trace their assets to know the whereabouts of their funds as well as access the platform’s risk profile.
The company has a small workforce of 12 employees with most of the staff on the engineering side. These employees have experience in quant trading.
Currently, Arbelos operates offshore through the British Virgin Islands. The company is also seeking a regulatory license from financial authorities in the region to enable it to operate without restrictions in compliance with local laws. The crypto derivatives platform will not be accessible to US traders when launched due to regulatory uncertainties in the region. So far, the company has facilitated an impressive $25 billion in notional trading volume since its soft launch in 2023.
