Ken Griffin says Citadel could enter as market maker on exchanges like Coinbase, pushes Trump for regulatory clarity

Ken Griffin, the billionaire founder and CEO of Citadel LLC, is planning to steer his firm into crypto trading, according to comments made at the 2025 UBS Financial Services Conference in Key Biscayne, Florida. 

The move, reportedly inspired by President Trump’s embrace of the industry, is not the first time Griffin has indicated Citadel would embrace crypto. But it is the clearest sign the firm will actually make an entrance.

At the conference, Griffin — a former crypto skeptic who once called bitcoin “a jihadist call” against the dollar — said the Trump administration should push for regularity guidelines to keep fraud at bay and enable banks and asset managers to enter. 

Bloomberg reported on Monday that Citadel, the largest market maker on the New York Stock Exchange, could enter in such a capicity on exchanges like Coinbase. A market maker is a company or person who buys and sells securities to keep markets liquid and stable.

"We've seen time and time again in markets where your tier one players are allowed to participate are actually markets that clean themselves up," he said. "So I'd like to see that happen in the cryptocurrency space, and that would be great regulatory guidance to give."

Griffin also criticized the Biden administration’s “evil” approach of "regulation by enforcement,” and praised efforts like Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which is reportedly considering using blockchain tech to improve government productivity. 

In recent months, Griffin has spoken more frankly about the “mistake” of avoiding crypto. On the same day that bitcoin surpassed $100,000 for the first time, for instance, Griffin told the Times that crypto is part of American people reclaiming “agency” in their lives after electing Donald Trump. 

This is not the first time Griffin said Citadel may have missed out by not trading crypto sooner. In 2022, weeks before the blowout of Do Kwon’s Terra blockchain that kickstarted a marketwide meltdown, Griffin said it was “fair to assume” Citadel would begin to engage with the industry “over the months to come.”

“I still have my skepticism, but there are hundreds and millions of people in this world today who disagree with that,” he said at the time. “To the extent that we’re trying to help institutions and investors solve their portfolio allocation problems, we have to give serious consideration to being a market maker in crypto.”

That, of course, did not transpire, and the event likely shaped Griffin’s opinion of the industry for the past several years. 

While Griffin appears to see an opportunity in crypto once again, he remains critical of its utility.

“What I don’t care for about crypto is, what problem does it solve for our economy?” he said in December. “What problem does it solve?”