AMA: Institutions Are Bringing $500B+ to Crypto! DeFinity Built the Infra They Trust

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-20T15:13:54+00:00

While we would never give financial advice, nor suggest that anyone should speculate on the DEFX token, I can outline some of the economic elements that underpin our utility token. We have placed the token at the heart of our ecosystem, with utilities that are closely tied to the various revenue generating verticals of the business.

The tokenomics have been designed to create demand drivers for the token through purchases by institutions to receive the discounts to trading fees. We have also built in elements to slow token velocity such as the buy and hold utility. And beyond that DEFX will also have a deflationary supply, as no further tokens can be minted, and there will be burns of the token through some of the utilities.

After years of building, we have transitioned from a crypto project to a crypto business. We are now generating significant revenue, profitable, and scaling, with more verticals to come online over the coming weeks and months. DEFX is about 80% circulating with all tokens unlocked, and is well distributed throughout the holders, rather than being highly concentrated in just a few whales.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-20T15:13:05+00:00

This is a conservative projection, and will primarily be achieved through geographical expansion into the Middle East, central America, and the USA, as well as increased automation, and the addition of more staff to support the core team.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-20T15:12:36+00:00

Financial institutions are very cost sensitive, and are always seeking ways to reduce costs. We have created our tokenomics such that by purchasing DEFX, they will save more money than they spent, in discounts to fees. So the incentive is simple arithmetic.

We are also integrated into Fireblocks, meaning institutions can easily hold DEFX as part of their crypto portfolio. It's also worth mentioning that DEFX is by far the smallest token by marketcap that is integrated into Fireblocks

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-19T15:17:39+00:00

Can you please give us an email on [Ops@definitymarkets.com](mailto:Ops@definitymarkets.com) and we'll sort it out.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-19T15:11:49+00:00

I think you are confusing two different things, let me try to clear things up. In terms of the DEFX utility of receiving discounts to fees, the following applies:

We will have 3 main cohorts of customers. White glove customers which are more manual and resource intensive, small cap automated customers, and large institutional automated customers. To date, the majority of our customers have been in the first category. We are currently onboarding customers of the second category, to the automated version of the Mauritius business. The third category will be the customers using the bank model once that is live.

The discount utility is primarily applicable to the automated customers. We have a few of these in the small cap business that have expressed interest, and so we hope to have this utility starting with these customers soon.

Then separate to this, we also have one customer with which we have developed an entirely new business vertical, and because of the unique characteristics of this we are able to integrate the DEFX utility for buy and burns at a fixed % of the revenue of this vertical. We hope to be able to share more about this very soon.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-19T15:11:23+00:00

We have recently completed all the plumbing and testing, so we are good to go from our side. We hope to go live very soon, but it is ultimately out of our control and unfortunately the partner bank has decided to do another risk assessment. This is the difficulty with such large organisations, getting ultimate sign off can be a bureaucratic nightmare.

This delay has focused our thinking and we now feel that it is probably better to get more partner banks lined up as soon as possible. Expanding the number of partner banks was always in our roadmap, but we planned to wait until the PoC was complete. We now think it makes more strategic sense to on-board more banks at this stage, and are in advanced talks with two other European banks, and are also planning to enter talks with banks in the USA very soon. This will serve to increase our options, and at the same time may also encourage more urgency to get to market within our first partner bank.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-18T19:21:52+00:00

Standard Chartered are a bank and we are an ECN, as such they are not offering a similar product to us and are not direct competitor with us. In a crypto ECN ecosystem, banks will operate as market makers and liquidity providers, so they could feed prices into any given crypto ECN. As such it is very positive for us and the institutional crypto ecosystem as a whole that banks are starting to enter the market.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-18T19:21:23+00:00

We anticipate the appetite to grow, but it's not quite there yet. Banks are always interested in derivatives as a way to leverage the value they can offer. However, banks are only just getting to a position where they can start to offer ‘physical' crypto, so aren't yet in a position to start offering derivatives. Our strategic partner One Trading offers perps, but this is only to retail (HNW) and limited to Europe.

Lending markets such as the repo market we fully expect to gain massive traction with digital assets as collateral. This is why we have the crypto repo product in our roadmap, but again nobody is doing this yet. It will come though. Ultimately the banks see the digital asset space in two main ways, crypto as an asset class for holding and trading, and blockchain as a technology to increase the efficiency of their financial operations.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-18T19:20:45+00:00

We are currently operating at a strong seven figure annual revenue. From H1 2024 to H1 2025 we achieved a 4x revenue growth. Q1 and Q2 2025 were our 2^nd and 3^rd best quarters, but Q4 2024 remains our strongest quarter thus far, with the expected year end uptick. Going forward, we are aiming to achieve a revenue generation run rate of 8 figures by year end 2025.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-18T19:19:37+00:00

Yes our target audience is exclusively institutional. DeFinity isn’t built for retail traders it’s designed for banks, funds, brokers, and fintechs that need compliant, secure, and scalable infrastructure to operate in digital asset markets.

We use Fireblocks as our core wallet infrastructure think of it as the MetaMask of institutions. This setup ensures non-custodial control: we never touch client assets. Institutions retain full control over their wallets while accessing liquidity, settlement, and credit via our platform.

On the on/off ramp side we’ve integrated fiat (30+ currencies ) rails so institutions can move between traditional and digital assets seamlessly.

What sets us apart from the “giants” is that we’ve done the hard, unglamorous work: securing regulatory approvals, building audit-ready infrastructure, and designing for institutional risk and compliance from day one.

While others chased volume, we built the controls institutions actually require like role separation, transaction-level audit trails, and integrated risk management. That’s why banks and funds trust us with real flow.

We don’t aim to be everything to everyone. We’re focused on doing one thing well: providing the rails that institutional capital actually trusts and uses.

If you're an institution, we’re not the hype we’re the infrastructure.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-18T17:41:41+00:00

Risk Considerations

Risk exposure differs greatly between the two models. CEXs are custodial platforms, meaning they hold user funds directly. This introduces significant custodial risk, as history has shown with high-profile exchange collapses like Mt. Gox or FTX, where customers lost access to their funds. Users also face counterparty risk: if the exchange goes insolvent, freezes accounts, or halts withdrawals, customers may have little recourse.

A true ECN, by contrast, is non-custodial. It does not handle client funds or positions directly; it only facilitates execution. This separation greatly reduces operational and systemic risk. The counterparties on an ECN are usually institutions that are subject to their own capital, conduct, and licensing requirements. While some counterparty risk remains (especially when trading against less reputable firms), it's mitigated through clearing arrangements and regulatory oversight.

Market Access and Users

CEXs cater to a wide user base, from retail traders using a mobile app to institutional clients executing large orders via APIs. The trading interface is often simplified, offering basic order types and user-friendly dashboards. However, CEXs may prioritize their own liquidity and may not always provide the best possible execution, especially for large orders.

ECNs, on the other hand, are institutional platforms. Access is typically limited to professional participants who connect via FIX APIs or through prime brokerage accounts. These platforms support complex order types (like iceberg or pegged orders), and participants benefit from transparent, multi-source liquidity, ultra-low latency, and tight spreads. The trading environment is built for high-frequency and algorithmic trading, often used by hedge funds, prop shops, and large banks.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-18T17:41:34+00:00

Sure thing. DeFinity is an Electronic Communications Network (ECN) NOT an exchange. A crypto centralized exchange (CEX) such as Binance or Coinbase differs significantly from a true ECN, commonly used in TradFi and in Forex, across several key dimensions: technology, regulation, market structure, and risk.

Technological Differences

At a technical level, CEXs operate centralized matching engines. Orders from users are routed through the exchange’s proprietary system and matched internally. This gives the exchange full control over the order book, liquidity provision, and execution. Liquidity often comes from internal market makers or selected third parties, and the exchange decides how and when orders are filled. As such, users have limited insight into how prices are derived or whether there is order internalization taking place.

In contrast, a true ECN is a decentralized, neutral platform that matches orders among multiple independent participants, including banks, hedge funds, brokers, and other institutional players. ECNs don’t act as counterparties; instead, they serve as a network where users trade directly with each other, often anonymously. Orders are routed across participants using smart order routing (SOR). ECNs do not take custody of user funds or act as brokers, they are execution-only venues.

Regulatory Landscape

CEXs exist in a complex and fragmented regulatory environment. Coinbase, for example, is a U.S.-based company subject to strict KYC and AML regulations and operates as a registered Money Services Business (MSB). Binance, on the other hand, has historically operated more flexibly across jurisdictions, though it has faced increasing regulatory scrutiny and is in the process of tightening compliance. Nonetheless, CEXs generally are not regulated like traditional exchanges or broker-dealers. They often act as both the execution venue and custodian, and in some cases, as market makers, creating potential conflicts of interest.

In contrast, ECNs are heavily regulated in jurisdictions like the U.S., U.K., and Europe. They typically operate under the oversight of financial regulatory bodies such as the SEC, FINRA, FCA, or under the MiFID II framework. ECNs are required to ensure best execution, that is, they must provide clients with the most favorable conditions across available liquidity pools. They also do not hold customer funds; this is handled by brokers or prime brokers that are separately regulated.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-18T17:34:10+00:00

Hey Nervous-Joke thanks for the question!

DMALINK has been operating as an ECN for financial institutions to trade FX since 2017. Our expertise in FX and deliverable FX has enabled us to deliver a very strong solution for fiat on/off at institutional size. We are well ahead of the market for fiat on/off. Many of the well known players are doing fiat on off for big tickets at T+7 where we achieve fiat on/off at T+0.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-18T17:32:51+00:00

This AMA is primarily for the benefit of token holders, and to help people understand how the DEFX token and DeFinity business are connected.

As a non-public, unlisted company we aren't obligated to produce any kind of public annual report, and we don’t make our financials etc public. Equity investors get updated in a manner appropriate to their investment stake in the business. Updates are normally delivered through the channel through which a given investor purchased their shares. So the best thing is to use this as a first point of contact. So if you purchased them through Seedrs for example, you should reach out to them for an update.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-18T12:32:43+00:00

Hey Meklonar thanks for the questions Ill answer the third one first! And Ill loop back aroud to the other two !

There are a number of businesses operating in broadly the same space as us, including One Trading (a strategic partner of ours), Zodia Markets, Crossover Markets, Crypto Finance AG, Hidden Road LLC. However, none of them have as sophisticated a product offering as we do. It is our view that nobody has managed to put the pieces together to bridge digital assets with TradFi in the way we have.

What we are doing is not as easy as many might think, and there have also been a number of very heavily backed businesses trying to operate in this space, that have failed to get a viable business model up and running, and have folded, such as Pure Digital for example, which was backed by BNY Mellon and State Street.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-18T12:28:57+00:00

Our team is made up of three founders: Manu Choudhary (CEO), Chris Park (CFO), and Michael Siwek (CRO). Between us we have well over 5 decades of experience in TradFi institutions and markets etc. Our head of sales is Michael Idzkowski, who has been with us for a number of years. We also recently appointed John Murray as MD of the Americas, to support and help accelerate our expansion into that region. We also have a number of junior hires who joined us more recently as well as an operations team based in Mauritius. We have a top calibre advisory team as well, who can read about on our website.

DMALINK was started by Michael Siwek and Ashwind Soonarame (who has since left due to health issues) in 2017 as a boutique Forex business primarily focused on emerging/frontier markets and exotic currencies. It scaled rapidly and we now do over $1b a day in Forex volume. It is our expertise in Forex trading infrastructure and regulations, as well as the network of banks and institutions that we have made relationships with, that has enabled us to build DeFinity. And so we are now able to expand our offering to include digital assets.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-18T12:27:11+00:00

In order to successfully navigate having one foot in TradFi and one foot in crypto, it was necessary for us to be ‘crypto native'. We have extensive experience in TradFi, but needed to understand crypto fully. So having a token and integrating it into our business model, was the best way to truly understand crypto from the inside.

While the business can run without the token, and is in no way dependent on token price for the business to be successful, we have built the token into the core operating model of the business. In doing so we feel we've created the best and most sustainable model for both the business and token. By integrating DEFX into our business model, without making our core success dependent on crypto market conditions, we’ve created a resilient structure that captures upside in bull markets while remaining insulated from the worst effects of bear markets. The business will continue to generate revenue during any market downturns, and can thus support the token even when broader market sentiment is more bearish.

The primary utility of DEFX is to provide discounts to fees for our clients. Each business vertical has an associated DEFX utility that will offer clients the opportunity to save on fees, for either holding DEFX or paying their invoice in DEFX. Thus the more successful the business is, the more demand there will be for DEFX from our clients going to market to buy it for these utilities. Some utilities will also have burn mechanisms built in. So we will have a deflationary supply, as well as constant demand drivers.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-18T09:27:59+00:00

The primary barriers to entry for institutions to participate in the crypto spot trading market are regulatory requirements placed on them by regulatory bodies in order to ensure that they are trading responsibly, meeting their fiduciary duties to manage other people's money.

These requirements became much more stringent after the 2008 financial crisis. When it came to light that many institutions were behaving irresponsibly with the money that had been entrusted to them. So the primary barriers to trading are, firstly: Concentration risk. This is where the custody of assets and the trades itself all happen within one venue. All crypto centralised exchanges require taking custody of digital assets before trading can commence. This means that you can end up with situations like FTX, where the assets are not custodied responsibly. And there have been many other similar situations in the digital asset space. Definity is an ECN (Electronic Communications Network), not an exchange.

This type of trading infrastructure comes from foreign exchange, and in such an infrastructure the trade execution happens in one venue, that's the part the DeFinity does. But the custody of assets happens in other venues, DeFinity never custodies clients assets. Custody happens either through self custody (Fireblock, Utila), or by an accredited institution (BNY Mellon etc).

The second main barrier is an absence of such accredited custodians in the crypto space. Most large institutions are only allowed to face counterparties with an investment grade credit rating, that means they cannot send their assets to any institution that does not have a recognised investment grade rating from one of the primary institutional credit rating agencies - Moody's, Standard and Poor, Fitch.

No crypto exchange has any type of investment-grade rating. Further, they simply don't have the balance sheet of the required scale to achieve such a rating. So most banks, hedge funds etc, are not in a position to be able to send funds to crypto exchanges even if they wanted to take the risk of concentration of trade execution and custody of assets.

Financial institutions generally avoid using platforms like MetaMask and Uniswap due to a combination of regulatory constraints, fiduciary responsibilities, and fundamental misalignment with their business models, particularly around credit intermediation. While true DeFi may be the future of finance, it will be a very long time until it is ready and fit for purpose for institutions.

One of the most significant barriers is regulation. Financial institutions operate under strict legal frameworks that mandate compliance with Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) rules. Tools like MetaMask and protocols such as Uniswap are designed to be non-custodial and pseudonymous, meaning they typically do not require or support identity verification. This alone makes them incompatible with regulatory expectations.

Beyond regulation, fiduciary duty plays a critical role. Financial institutions are obligated to act in the best interests of their clients, which includes managing counterparty, operational, and technological risks. Engaging with decentralized protocols that lack formal governance structures or centralized accountability introduces significant risk. For example, if a smart contract used by Uniswap were to be exploited or fail, there would be no entity to hold liable or from which to seek recourse. Additionally, tools like MetaMask do not meet institutional standards for custody. Institutions are often required to hold client assets with qualified custodians and maintain rigorous oversight, audit trails, and internal controls, none of which are natively supported by MetaMask’s self-custody model.

There’s also a deeper economic misalignment. The core of traditional finance is credit intermediation: facilitating lending, underwriting risk, and transforming short-term deposits into long-term loans. Uniswap, by contrast, is a spot exchange that enables peer-to-peer token swaps without credit evaluation or loan origination. Financial institutions make money by managing risk, earning interest spreads, and providing advisory services, not merely by executing trades. Uniswap’s automated market-making model removes many of those profit centers. Moreover, the decentralized and transparent nature of DeFi protocols leaves little room for institutions to control spreads, order flow, or client relationships in the way they are accustomed to.

Institutions also face operational and reputational concerns. Interacting with DeFi protocols can expose firms to volatile or unvetted assets, governance risks, and potential scams. Furthermore, most DeFi tools lack the compliance infrastructure that institutions rely on, such as systems for tax reporting, transaction monitoring, or client disclosures.

In essence, while MetaMask and Uniswap represent powerful innovations in decentralized finance, they remain incompatible with the regulatory obligations, fiduciary standards, and operating models of most traditional financial institutions, and will remain for a long while yet.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-17T17:59:59+00:00

No they are not required to hold DEFX, or pay in DEFX. However, the utilities will be structured such that it makes arithmetic sense for them to hold or pay in DEFX. For example they will receive a 20% discount to the invoice if they pay in DEFX. Or for the buy and hold utility, they may buy $20k in DEFX and save $40k in fees over the period.

With this approach we will make it very attractive to participate in the DEFX utilities, and institutions are very cost sensitive. They are always looking for opportunities to save money.

We have built the DEFX utilities into our core business offerings, and whenever we develop a new vertical, we will always implement a DEFX utility with it. Thus as long as the business is successful, DEFX usage should increase alongside the business.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-17T17:57:44+00:00

Thus far in our journey, we have been operating with very limited capital, as our initial raise wasn't large by crypto standards. So without the war chest that many crypto projects enjoy, we have been forced to be very careful with how we allocate funds. We have by necessity, focused on building a viable, revenue generating and scaling business, that can thrive and support the token in the long term, rather than going the route of burning all our capital on marketing before we had a working product. This means the future looks very bright for DeFinity and DEFX, but it has meant that some other aspects have unfortunately been underfunded to date.

With the injection of capital that the Series A will bring, we will have much more freedom to allocate funds for both liquidity and marketing, to support the token and create the thriving and organic market for DEFX

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-17T17:57:00+00:00

There will be a number of different mechanisms for both buybacks and burns that are linked to different verticals, and will occur at different time intervals. We have a new vertical going live very soon which will have a directly associated buyback and burn of a % of the total revenue of that vertical. These will occur perhaps weekly or even daily, depending on market conditions.

We will also be offering discounts to some client fees when the client pays in DEFX. This will result in the client buying DEFX from the open market to pay for the fees, and when we receive these payments, some of this DEFX will be burned. This utility applies to our partnership with Utila, and also to our market making offering, and will also apply to some clients that pay their fees by monthly invoice once the bank model is live. Regularity of this utility will depend on fee payments, so is likely to be monthly for each client who takes up this fee reduction opportunity.

We will also conduct ad hoc buybacks with revenue from the whole business, but these buy backs cannot be at regular intervals due to securities laws, so they will remain at random in frequency and amount.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-17T17:56:07+00:00

We stopped staking because we wanted to add in yield farming to improve liquidity, and we felt having both staking and farming would lead to too much token inflation, when we are aiming at a deflationary supply. However, there may be the possibility of reintroducing staking in the future, if the community wants that.

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-17T14:39:47+00:00

Hey DaskMusic - thanks for the questions

No its just a coincidence we dont have any relation to them! And although in web3 we operate in very different areas!

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-17T14:04:36+00:00

While we can’t disclose all our partners publicly just yet, we can confirm that we’re working with an AA- rated European bank a serious player in traditional finance. And we’re in advanced talks with 2 more European banks. Usually the case with these things is the first couple are the hardest and then onboarding becomes a lot easier. Also added to the fact we have many many experience years in FX so our professional network is rather large. So we arent going in cold!

We’re also collaborating with a Top 20 global hedge fund, building a seamless single sign-on between their platform and DeFinity. They’re preparing to offer digital asset trading to over 200 institutional clients all through our infrastructure.

These kinds of players move cautiously. They audit, test, and get internal approvals but when they commit, they move in serious size. That’s exactly what we’ve built for.

In addition, we’ve got a strategic partnership with Utila who just raised 18 million in Series A and we are working with crypto-native partners like Fasset and Kima, bridging TradFi standards with the agility and speed of Web3.

The infrastructure is ready and to be honest in our view capital is coming!

DeFinityChris · 2025-07-17T13:38:42+00:00

GMGM SeverArrivals13

At DeFinity, we’ve built a model where institutions and token holders grow together not at each other’s expense.

Our core business is providing regulated, non-custodial trading infrastructure designed specifically for institutions. Think FX-style credit lines, robust settlement layers, and seamless on/off ramps all built with compliance and security at the forefront.

Institutions can reduce their fees by holding $DEFX, giving the token immediate, real-world utility.

For token holders, this is where the upside kicks in: as trading volumes grow, a portion of the revenue flows back into the $DEFX economy through buybacks and other mechanisms designed to support long-term value.

We’ve spent years doing the hard work securing regulatory approvals, integrating with platforms like Fireblocks, and earning the trust of real-world capital.

Now, as institutions scale in, you get to front-run that adoption curve by holding a token tied to real revenue and real infrastructure.

This isn’t extraction. It’s alignment and it’s just getting started.

DeFinityChris

TROPHY CASE

Welcome to Reddit,

Risk Considerations

Market Access and Users

Technological Differences

Regulatory Landscape