Crypto Trading Tech Firm CoinRoutes Wins Patent for ‘Smart Order Router’

CoinRoutes, a startup that aims to help crypto hedge funds and other investors get the best price on trades, has won a patent for its system of routing transactions to exchanges and estimating costs.

A patent for a “Distributed Crypto-Currency Smart Order Router With Cost Calculator” was awarded Feb. 14, with co-founders David Weisberger and Ian Weisberger (father and son) credited as the inventors, according to the document posted on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s website. CoinRoutes publicized the patent grant in a press release on March 16.

The invention allows “clients to keep control of their own private and exchange keys to their wallets and accounts, but can execute orders across multiple exchanges simultaneously,” according to the patent document.

David Weisberger told CoinDesk in an interview the setup is designed to be a “crypto-native” system for a digital-asset landscape where cryptocurrencies can be simultaneously bought and sold on multiple exchanges and traded against scads of other currencies and tokens.

The business of providing digital-asset trading technologies for big investors could become more competitive as the market emerges from the current crypto winter.

Talos, another provider of crypto trading technology, raised $105 million in funding in 2022 from investors including Andreesen Horowitz (a16z), PayPal, Fidelity and Castle Island Ventures. Other players in the trading-tech arena include Elwood Technologies, Gemini’s Omniex and Architect, a startup led by former FTX US President Brett Harrison.

Under the CoinRoutes’ setup, clients have their own servers, but reams of data on historical crypto trades are stored on regional servers. Weisberger said the cost of storing the data on their own servers can reach $25,000 in some cases. Instead, they can access the data from the regional servers at a tenth of the cost, Weisberger said.

“We’re the only ones doing it this way,” he said.

Obtaining the patent – a process that took five years – could provide a boost for CoinRoutes in marketing and signaling beyond any profit motive from claiming the intellectual property, he said.

“We’re not a patent troll,” he said. “It’s about as clear a proof as possible that we’ve been doing this for the most amount of time.”