A decade ahead of the curve

Philippe Bekhazi on building XBTO and the future of institutional crypto.

Ten years ago, crypto was still a question mark. Infrastructure was limited, institutions were cautious, and the idea that digital assets might one day anchor global finance felt like a long bet. Today, that bet is beginning to pay off.

Custody frameworks are maturing. Spot BTC ETFs are live. And increasingly, corporations are treating Bitcoin and digital assets as reserve assets. But as institutional adoption grows, one thing is clear: access still matters.

Owning digital assets is no longer the barrier. The real challenge is knowing how to allocate - and who to trust. With dispersion across assets increasing, it’s not just about backing the winners. It’s about managing downside, avoiding structural underperformers, and having the tools to execute with discipline.

That requires more than market access. It demands the right strategies, risk-adjusted thinking, compliant custody, legal clarity, and operational strength.That’s what we’ve spent the last decade focused on.

XBTO started in 2015 as a proprietary trading firm, operating quietly in the background through every market cycle. Over time, that foundation evolved into capital markets infrastructure, asset management strategies, and the systems needed to support institutional participation at scale.

Today, we work across the stack: from quantitative trading and structured products to tokenized markets and fund services. We’re fully licensed under Abu Dhabi’s ADGM. We’ve partnered with Arab Bank Switzerland. And we’ve launched XBTO Hub to support a new wave of allocators and treasuries moving into digital assets.

To mark XBTO’s 10-year milestone, we sat down with CEO & Founder Philippe Bekhazi to talk about the real story behind crypto’s institutionalization, the infrastructure that still needs to be built, and what it will take for serious capital to stay.

In conversation: Building through the noise

In 2015, Philippe Bekhazi came across Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper. For a seasoned trader and systems architect - with experience at Citibank, SAC Capital, and Calypso - the implications were immediate. This wasn’t just another financial innovation. It was the blueprint for a different kind of system: transparent, programmable, and global from day one.

That conviction marked a turning point. Phil saw what many would only come to recognize years later: that digital assets weren’t just a new asset class, but the foundation for rethinking how capital flows, risk is priced, and markets function.

Since then, the crypto landscape has evolved rapidly,  through cycles of growth and crisis, waves of innovation, and growing institutional interest. But much of the real progress has happened quietly: in building infrastructure, designing strategies, and learning what it takes to operate with discipline in a volatile, still-maturing system.

When I first read Satoshi’s white paper, I knew instantly: this was going to be the focus of the next decade of my life. Bitcoin wasn’t just another innovation - it was a foundational shift.

As someone who had spent years building trading and risk systems across asset classes at firms like Citibank, SAC Capital, and Calypso (now Nasdaq), I immediately recognized its potential to rewire how finance could work - transparent, programmable, and borderless.

Finance had been slow to evolve. Banks still operated on infrastructure designed half a century ago. There was no real incentive to modernize. Bitcoin, and the broader blockchain technology, was the catalyst I had been waiting for.

In 2015, I didn’t yet know what the endgame looked like. But I was sure I wanted to be at the core of this new financial system - as a trader, an investor, and eventually, a builder.

I entered through two clear channels: arbitrage in fragmented crypto markets and venture investments in the infrastructure layer. One notable example is Deribit - which we supported early on and has since become a cornerstone of the crypto derivatives ecosystem, culminating in its $3B acquisition by Coinbase in May 2025.But the long game was always about building.

That’s why I started XBTO - to bring institutional rigor to an asset class still in its early stages. I imagined a firm that could sit at the intersection of financial expertise and breakthrough technology - and help shape a new kind of capital market.

Ten years later, that vision hasn’t changed - it’s only sharpened.

From day one, my ambition was to bridge two worlds: bring Bitcoin and blockchain to traditional finance - not as a novelty, but as a new asset class and infrastructure layer for how financial transactions would work in the future.

At the time, many crypto-native players wanted to distance themselves from legacy markets. My instinct was the opposite. I’d spent years building systems in traditional finance, from trading desks to risk engines, and I saw clearly that digital assets weren’t just speculative instruments. They were the beginning of something much bigger: programmable, transparent capital markets.

Trading is in my DNA, so that’s where we started. I launched XBTO as a proprietary trading firm, building algorithms to price risk, provide liquidity, and capitalize on early market inefficiencies. That edge gave us both credibility and capital. From there, we started backing projects, investing in infrastructure, and scaling our capabilities globally.

The ambition hasn’t changed - it’s grown. What began as a high-performance trading firm has evolved into a full-service quantitative investment platform. Since 2023, we’ve expanded into asset management and capital markets, still built for performance, but now designed for the next wave of institutional adoption.

How fast everything changes, and how slowly conviction is earned.

Crypto has moved at lightning speed. We’ve seen massive cycles, new technologies, regulatory pivots, and institutional players enter (and exit) the space. But despite all that momentum, trust and legitimacy still take time.

What’s surprised me most is how long it takes for big ideas to go from “speculative” to “foundational.”. I’ve had the same conversations about Bitcoin - as a reserve asset, as a hedge, as programmable money - for most of the last decade. But it’s only now, in 2025, that those conversations carry institutional weight. Same themes, very different level of understanding.

It’s a reminder that in crypto, timing matters, but staying power matters more.

I think many still assume that volatility means there’s no structure, no discipline, no risk management. But that’s outdated.

The reality is, the digital asset space is maturing fast, but in a very different shape than traditional markets. When institutions look at crypto through a traditional lens - P&L drivers, counterparty structure, operational controls - it can feel unfamiliar, even messy.

But underneath that surface, there’s a growing layer of professionalism: market-neutral strategies, regulated custody, real-time reporting, tokenized instruments. It’s just that the institutions haven’t always had the right partners to walk them through it.

The biggest misunderstanding, in my view, is thinking that crypto is still “early-stage risk.” In reality, it’s just differently engineered risk, and if you approach it with the right infrastructure, the right mindset, and the right team, it can fit into a portfolio with discipline and purpose.

That’s the bridge we’re trying to build at XBTO, translating institutional standards into a new kind of market.

Discipline, integration, and trust.

At this point, most institutions aren’t debating whether crypto matters. They’ve accepted that it’s worth paying attention to. The real question is how to engage without compromising their standards. That means they’re no longer just chasing returns - they’re looking for exposure that fits inside a disciplined investment process. That starts with familiar things: custody they can trust, risk that’s modeled correctly, strategies that are explainable to an investment committee. But it also includes the ability to put crypto in context, to answer questions like:

What role does this play in my portfolio? What risk am I actually taking? And how do I benchmark performance across a volatile and often non-linear market?

And of course, they want to know who will still be standing in five years. Institutions have seen enough cycles to value consistency over hype. They gravitate toward firms that manage volatility rather than chase it, and who treat crypto not as a product - but as part of a larger investment system.

For allocators entering this space, that’s the key mindset shift: crypto isn’t just something to access. It’s something to underwrite, with the same level of discipline they’d apply to any other asset class.

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Because the market structure is fundamentally different, and so are the dynamics that drive it.

Crypto doesn’t run on the same rails as traditional finance. It’s global by default, trades 24/7, and is still evolving in terms of liquidity, regulation, and product maturity. That creates both opportunity and complexity. You’re not just managing price risk, you’re managing infrastructure risk, behavioral volatility, and regulatory asymmetry.

I’ve always believed that crypto rewards systems thinking: understanding the broader macro context, but executing with precision and structure underneath. That’s why we’ve always paired a long-term thesis with disciplined, scalable ways to express it.

Ultimately, what this space demands is a framework - one that can evolve with the market. Whether that’s delivered through quantitative tools, discretionary overlays, or hybrids, the goal is the same: manage uncertainty with intent.

I think we’re moving past the “should we?” phase and into the “how should we?” phase.

For most institutional portfolios, digital assets won’t be the core holding, but they will play a strategic role. Even small allocations to assets like Bitcoin or Ethereum can improve portfolio efficiency, especially when designed thoughtfully. But I also think we’ll see more attention on how exposure is delivered: structured yield, tokenized credit, directional vs. hedged, active vs. passive.

What excites me is that this asset class isn’t just new, it’s programmable. That opens the door to very intentional design. You can express views on volatility, macro regimes, or liquidity - all through structures that are transparent and settle in real time.

So yes, digital assets will likely sit alongside alternatives in the portfolio. But over time, I think they’ll push the alternatives category forward - not just in what you can invest in, but how you can structure that exposure to reflect your actual strategy.

They’ll look less like crypto companies, and more like full-stack financial platforms.

The first wave was about proving this ecosystem could work. The next wave is about integrating it, with traditional capital markets, with regulatory frameworks, and with the workflows large investors already use.

That means we’ll see consolidation. Firms that can’t scale or adapt will disappear. And the ones that remain will be those that combine tech, strategy, and governance in a way that institutions recognize and trust.

I also think we’ll see more vertical integration - not for control, but for simplicity. The more that custody, execution, risk management, and reporting can speak to each other, the more investable this space becomes. That’s what institutions are asking for: clarity, consistency, and infrastructure that’s built to last.

The firms that succeed won’t just be good at crypto. They’ll be good at markets - full stop.

Ten years in, and just getting started

Looking back on the past decade, it’s clear that crypto hasn’t just evolved, it’s matured. The cycles, the breakthroughs, the setbacks - they’ve all shaped a space that now demands more from the people building in it.

For institutional investors, that means the real opportunities now lie in structure, not speculation. In building exposure that’s not just directional, but risk-adjusted, operationally sound, and designed to last across cycles.

It also means asking better questions:

1. What role should digital assets play in the portfolio?
2. What infrastructure is required to support them?
3. Who can be trusted to manage that exposure over time?

The market will keep evolving. But the edge will come from those who engage with it deliberately, not as a trend, but as a strategy.

That’s been our approach from the beginning. And ten years in, it’s more relevant than ever.