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

Crossover Markets Group seeks to serve TradFi institutions and crypto-native firms looking for low-latency infrastructure

article-image

Blockworks exclusive art by axel rangel

share

key takeaways

  • Anthony Mazzarese and Brandon Mulvihill, former heads of foreign exchange prime brokerage at Jefferies, team up with Euronext FX CTO Vlad Rysin
  • The company is finalizing its seed funding round and plans to launch later this year

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

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. 

“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 FXCM, 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. 

“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.”


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Research Report Templates (8).png

Research

Meta-aggregators like Titan and Kamino Swap improve price execution for users, making the Solana swapping landscape more competitive. Jupiter has incorporated meta-aggregation features into its latest routing engine to keep users on its front end (own the user, own the flow). At large, teams are treating swaps as a commoditized complement, offering incredibly cheap or free swaps to own the end-user and increase demand for high-margin product offerings (multi-product DeFi). On another note, the divergence in the concentration of aggregator volume between DEXs suggests increased specialization at the DEX layer by asset type.

article-image

Many community banks and credit unions feel like they missed the fintech craze — and they don’t want to miss stablecoins

article-image

BlackRock COO Rob Goldstein noted that the firm had been looking into crypto since 2017

article-image

With the June FOMC meeting coming up, the Fed remains unlikely to cut interest rates. Is this the right move?

article-image

The crypto-optional shooter is expected to release on Steam in a few weeks

article-image

The new airdrop campaign reaches 50,000 users, setting the stage for Spark’s 10-year token distribution