How Talos Powers BlackRock's Crypto Trades: The Inside Story
Anton Katz, Founder of Talos, built the institutional crypto trading infrastructure that BlackRock, Nasdaq, and Robinhood rely on, and in this conversation with host Sri Misra on alpha un#, he explains exactly what happens to finance next.Anton Katz is a MIT computer science graduate, IDF veteran, and former Head of Trading Technology at AQR Capital Management, who left in 2018 to build the institutional infrastructure his former employer could not. Talos is now a $1.5 billion digital asset trading platform connecting over 100 venues, serving asset managers with $21 trillion in AUM, and powering execution behind BlackRock's Aladdin integration and Nasdaq's tokenized collateral initiative. In this conversation, Katz makes a counterintuitive declaration: Talos is not a crypto company. Crypto was simply the first asset class on digital rails, and equities, bonds, and treasuries are next. He describes three separate financial conversations running simultaneously, why most builders are watching only one, and recounts a real exchange with a Wall Street trading head who admitted 40% of market liquidity will soon be native on-chain with no system to bridge the gap.👉How Talos became the execution layer behind BlackRock's crypto trading workflows and what that integration actually required to build👉Why Anton Katz says "crypto is just the first asset class on digital rails" and what that means for equities, bonds, and treasuries moving on-chain👉What a major US bank's head of trading told Katz four weeks before recording: that 40% of market liquidity will go native on-chain and no bank has a system to operate across both worlds👉How Talos navigated the FTX collapse and the 2022-23 crypto winter by building a churn model that doesn't compete with rivals but instead tracks whether clients' entire businesses survive👉Why DeFi vaults may fundamentally change the cost structure and access model of institutional asset management, from the perspective of someone who ran trading technology at one of the world's top quant funds👉What three financial conversations are running in parallel right now, crypto as an asset class, stablecoins as payment rails, and capital markets tokenization, and why understanding all three simultaneously is where the real opportunity sitsSubscribe to unhashed for weekly founder and builder conversations, and follow Sri Misra on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/srimisra for daily insights on DeFi, AI, and the future of finance00:00 - Inside Talos: The Institutional Crypto Infrastructure Story 02:04 - What Talos Actually Does for Institutions 08:09 - How Institutions Use CeFi vs DeFi Today 12:28 - Why DeFi Vaults Could Change Asset Management 14:35 - Talos, BlackRock Aladdin, and Crypto Adoption 18:07 - Leaving AQR: The Origin of Talos 24:28 - The Founder Mindset: Optimist and Pessimist 28:55 - The ETF Moment That Unlocked Institutional Crypto 32:21 - Stablecoins as the New Settlement Rail 35:03 - The $130 Billion Remittance Problem Stablecoins Solve 37:06 - Phase 3: Talos Beyond Crypto Assets 40:56 - BlackRock's Warning: 40% Goes On-Chain 43:47 - Is Talos Becoming a DeFi Gatekeeper? 47:18 - No Token, Possible IPO: What's Next#AntonKatz #Talos #InstitutionalCrypto #DigitalAssetTrading #CryptoInfrastructure #BlockchainCapitalMarkets #TokenizationRWA #DeFiForInstitutions #CryptoAdoption #BlackRockCrypto #SriMisra #CryptoStartup #InstitutionalBlockchain #StablecoinPayments #DeFiYield #CryptoFounder #Web3Infrastructure #DigitalAssets #CryptoUnicornDisclaimer: The information presented is for educational purposes only. Views expressed are those of the speakers, not necessarily the channel. You are responsible for your own research and decisions.Copyright: © 2024 Aarna AI Pte Ltd, Singapore. All rights reserved.
