By Granite River Trading has formally launched as a principal digital-asset trading firm, naming co-founder Josh Gibson as chief executive and disclosing connections to more than 25 centralized, decentralized and onchain venues. The company announcement says the firm trades its own capital through systematic and discretionary strategies.
That principal designation is important. GRT is not announcing an exchange, brokerage or customer-custody service. It says it uses its own balance sheet to trade and provide liquidity, including in OTC, tokenized-asset and prediction markets. The release gives no trading volume, balance-sheet size, counterparty list or regulatory registration, so the launch establishes a team and scope rather than independently measured market share.
A Team Drawn From GSR, Keyrock, Auros and Cumberland
Gibson spent five years at GSR and has nearly two decades of financial-markets experience, according to the company. Co-founder and chief technology officer Juan Marquez previously led engineering at Keyrock, while head of trading Kalon Jarvis held roles at Auros and Cumberland DRW.
Those firms represent a mature segment of crypto market making. Keyrock supplies liquidity across dozens of venues and recently joined Finery Markets’ institutional network. GSR has expanded its US perimeter through a FINRA-approved broker-dealer acquisition, while Cumberland, GSR and other firms have worked on onchain collateral infrastructure.
GRT enters that field with a team LinkedIn page listing 11 to 50 employees and a 2024 founding date. Those directory details are not a substitute for audited operating data, but they indicate the business existed before the formal public launch.
Connectivity Is Not the Same as Liquidity
Access to more than 25 venues can help a principal firm compare prices, hedge inventory and move risk between markets. It does not show how much executable depth GRT posts, how tight its spreads are or how often it remains in the market during stress. Those outcomes require volume, uptime, fill-rate and counterparty data that the release does not provide.
The distinction matters after several institutional providers retrenched or failed. Keyrock acquired assets from BlockFills after the latter’s reported $75 million lending loss, a transaction approved in bankruptcy proceedings. Market makers also face fragmented settlement arrangements and venue credit risk, even when their trading strategies are intended to be market-neutral.
Gibson says the company is well capitalized, but GRT does not publish capital, leverage or risk limits. It also does not identify custodians, settlement partners or the legal entities used across its global activity. A counterparty evaluating the firm would need those facts alongside the leadership biographies.
OTC and Prediction Markets Broaden the Risk Map
The launch covers OTC trading, real-world-asset exchanges and prediction markets as well as conventional crypto venues. Each introduces a different legal and operational perimeter. OTC activity creates bilateral credit and settlement exposure; onchain venues add smart-contract and bridge risks; event contracts can fall under different derivatives or gambling rules depending on jurisdiction.
GRT does not say whether it serves external OTC clients, acts only as principal against other institutions, or offers token issuers contracted market-making programmes. It also does not identify where employees or entities are regulated. The word “global” describes coverage, not authorization to provide a regulated service in every market.
The firm’s move into a market where incumbents are integrating banking and settlement support is timely. Deutsche Bank, for example, supplies FX and multicurrency accounts to Keyrock, while Standard Chartered has taken a stake in GSR. GRT has not announced equivalent institutional partners.
The Next Proof Point Is Operating Data
GRT says it is hiring in business development, trading and compliance and expects its activity to broaden. The appointments give the firm experience in engineering, derivatives and market making. The unanswered question is what that team has built at operating scale.
Useful disclosures would include average daily volume, principal capital, venue concentration, uptime, asset coverage, counterparty standards and the share of activity that is customer-facing. Until then, “more than 25 venues” is a connectivity count and “well capitalized” remains management’s description.
The launch adds another principal firm to a consolidating institutional market. Its credibility will be determined less by the pedigree of previous employers than by consistent pricing, settlement performance and transparent risk controls across the venues it now says it covers.