B2C2’s Maxime Boonen on SBI deal: 'There is no excuse for institutions now'

Maxime Boonen, the founder of crypto market-maker B2C2, is in a triumphant mood.

His company has just been acquired for an undisclosed sum by SBI Financial Services, a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate SBI Holdings.

In breaking the news of the acquisition on December 15, Reuters declared that the deal would make SBI the “first major financial group to run a digital asset dealing desk.” Boonen believes the deal removes the final barrier to entry for institutional investors interested in digital assets.

“My angle with this transaction is that there is no excuse for institutions now,” the former Goldman Sachs banker told The Block, adding:

“They can now trade electronically on a FIX connection against a bank, then keep their coins with any of a plethora of regulated custodians and have their crypto balances audited by a big four firm.”

B2C2 is known for helping big investors execute multi-million dollar over-the-counter digital asset trades. In July, SBI holdings took a $30 million minority stake in the firm and gave its clients access to the B2C2 platform — prompting a fourfold increase in B2C2’s over-the-counter trading volumes. 

But dealing with SBI's own digital assets desk is a far less risky proposition than dealing with an SBI-backed digital assets startup.

Just hours after announcing the deal, Boonen said that a well-known financial institution had queried whether SBI could provide a parent guarantee to the operating subsidiary that the institution in question would face in trades.

“That’s part of the box ticking by credit departments in conventional markets. And that’s exactly what we want them to do: tick the credit box and move on to trading,” he said.

Boonen’s optimism is understandable, but his statement that there is now “no excuse” for institutions cuts both ways.

The success of the tie-up between B2C2 and SBI will be an important yardstick for exactly how keen finance groups are to pile into the still-nascent asset class.  

Life inside SBI

Neither SBI nor B2C2 would disclose the sum paid for the former’s new crypto desk, but the cash transaction leaves Boonen and co-founder Flavio Molendini as the only two remaining shareholders besides the finance group, which now has a controlling stake. Prior to the acquisition, Boonen was the startup’s majority shareholder.

B2C2 had an employee stock option plan in place which, according to Boonen, was “quite broad for the early joiners”, although not all 50 employees have cashed in.

“Some of them got a very nice exit, something Flavio and I are super happy about,” he said.

He then clarified that “payout” would be a better term than “exit” since, like the co-founders, the staff are all being subsumed into SBI. B2C2 will continue to hire as part of SBI, with plans to grow the team to 70 people in the coming months.

Employees are already helping SBI to implement a high-frequency trading database as part of their main business — and the B2C2 employee leading this has hired a junior to assist with the project. Some of B2C2’s staff will also begin training their counterparts at SBI in the arcane arts of cryptocurrency trading, said Boonen.

“We’re not selling some sort of Software-as-a-Service product. We’re selling a sales force and its client base, a world-class tech and quant team and process, a proven governance structure,” he said.

As for the future of B2C2, the brand and its website will continue to be used for the time being, but Boonen advised “checking back in ten years” to determine whether that remains the case. Certain B2C2 clients are “already facing an SBI entity,” so the acquisition may not prove all that disruptive to the firm's existing customer base, said Boonen.