Talos Integrates with BlackRock’s Aladdin to Streamline Institutional Crypto Trading

Talos, an institutional trading technology provider for digital assets, has integrated its order and execution management system with BlackRock’s Aladdin platform, the companies said on Monday.

The tie-up offers institutional clients access to Talos’ network of centralized exchanges and decentralized (DeFi) protocols, as well as over-the-counter (OTC) dealers, an important source of digital asset liquidity for institutions, according to a press release.

The connection supports multiple execution strategies. Traders can run algorithmic strategies such as volume-weighted average price (VWAP) and time-weighted average price (TWAP). They can also leverage request-for-quote (RFQ) workflows, which allow competitive pricing from multiple OTC dealers.

Talos’ RFQ functionality, built explicitly for BlackRock’s crypto ETP create/redeem process, can now be used more broadly for trading of digital assets, Talos said.

The BlackRock integration has realized over $1 billion in trading volume in the first week of implementation, according to Anton Katz, CEO and co-founder of Talos.

“This integration allows us to provide very tight capabilities between BlackRock's technology stack and the Taos technology stack, so clients of Aladdin are able to route orders seamlessly into our portfolio management system and execute those orders,” Katz said in an interview. “It really allows institutions to start using their existing tool set to connect to this new domain.”

Over the past couple of years, BlackRock has brought its size and influence to crypto, starting out with adding Coinbase to Aladdin, then later issuing crypto ETFs and joining the real world asset tokenization space.

“Integrating Talos into Whole Portfolio applications on the Aladdin platform enables us to expand and further automate our crypto trading capabilities. Talos’s crypto-native technology strengthens our execution capabilities now, ensuring we’re ready to meet future client demand with greater efficiency, liquidity access, and execution quality,” said Dan Veiner, Head of Markets at BlackRock.

Talos acquired crypto data firm Coin Metrics earlier this year, the larges acquisition made by the firm to date. Headquartered in New York, Talos operates in 32 countries with offices in London, Cyprus, and Singapore.