How Keyrock overcame the great crypto crash to become a tech leader in market making

When Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin white paper in 2008, the idea of a decentralised economy or a token economy seemed wild. However, in the past decade, we have come a long way in understanding the impact of blockchain, tokens, and the crypto token industry. While the crypto industry has gone from exploration to changing the economic system, one area that has fallen short of attention is liquidity and Keyrock, a Belgian startup on a mission to fix that deficit.

Founded by Kevin de Patoul, Juan David Mendieta and Jeremy de Groodt, in 2017, Keyrock came at a time when the technology for crypto was still in its early stages and it lacked the solid infrastructure for market-making. This became an opportunity to build scalable systems supporting tokenised economies and providing liquidity across various markets.

Foundation

When Keyrock launched, its founders probably didn’t know that a bubble was waiting to burst and the crypto industry was turning into a bear market. However, they saw this as an opportunity to focus on the long-term, refine their systems, and grow in a more resilient way. With crypto companies struggling, Keyrock used the company to lay the foundation for a business that can scale effectively as the market matures.

“Our mission has always been to help create efficient, liquid markets for digital assets, enabling tokenised economies to thrive, and that’s what sets us apart – our commitment to being there for our clients, no matter the market conditions,” says De Patoul, co-founder and CEO of Keyrock.

At the centre of this foundation is the use of technology that plays a crucial role in ensuring liquidity in digital asset markets. Keyrock leverages tools like algorithmic trading and smart order routing to execute trades quickly and efficiently. The idea is that such a system will minimise market disruption and ensure that buy or sell orders are matched accurately.

“This helps keep volatility in check and ensures liquidity remains stable across platforms,” says De Groodt, co-founder and CTO of Keyrock. He adds, “Blockchain technology also contributes significantly by providing continuous market access, removing limitations like trading hours. This allows for 24/7 trading, creating a more flexible and dynamic market environment.”

As part of its technology stack, Keyrock has developed proprietary systems for market making, which helps facilitate smoother trading. De Groodt tells me the technology enables assets to flow seamlessly across different networks, making liquidity management more accessible and efficient.

Another facet of its technology is cross-chain liquidity and a proprietary scripting system that allows for high-speed transactions across chains. In a nutshell, Keyrock drives the development of the digital asset ecosystem by fostering the growth of new and existing blockchain networks and tokens. With this expertise in Market making, Ecosystem development, and, also, OTC and Options trading, Keyrock contributes to the broader advancement of the crypto industry and token economy.

Flexibility

If technology foundation is the bedrock of Keyrock then flexibility is the ace up its sleeve. This flexibility comes from an early realisation that a flexible foundation is necessary to address the different needs of different workloads over 24/7/365 operations. With flexibility comes the possibility of scaling the system to handle significant throughput or load and maturity to provide localised resources and modern deployment mechanisms.

This need for a flexible system, De Groodt explains, is the primary challenge facing crypto technology companies. He explains the way to overcome this challenge is to develop a proprietary trading engine designed to run in a cloud environment. “This meant cross-jurisdictional architecture, rapid deployment and configuration, and monitoring and metrics.”

AWS to scale tech challenge

At the core of Keyrock’s flexible and foundational technology is Amazon Web Services (AWS). As the largest cloud provider in the world, AWS hadall the solutions to meet the initial needs of the crypto startup. It also provided the core tooling needed to build a mature platform to handle the aforementioned workload and apply automation to various deployments.

According to De Groodt, it helps that many of its trading venues or supporting systems also use AWS, allowing for proximity to ensure the best possible quality of connection. For Keyrock, “AWS also provides near instantaneous access to current compute,” says De Groodt, before adding, “It also offers supporting resources in a wide range of regions with common controls and governance.”

NEO Investment Bank for digital assets

There is no denying that Keyrock is run by a bunch of ambitious people with a singular goal of disrupting the digital economy. To make that mission possible, it has raised a total of $78M so far with $72M of that funding raised just two years ago. De Patoul says they used that Series B funding to bolster its infrastructure, improve scalability, and expand its regulatory licensing across key markets.

“This funding allowed us to continue enhancing our market-making technologies, which are core to providing liquidity solutions across a range of digital assets,” he quips.

The funding has also helped them expand the team with the startup having doubled its headcount and expanded into new global markets. At the time of writing, Keyrock is a team of 165 and the startup is actively hiring across key roles such as Head of Engineering, IT Support Team Lead, Agile Delivery Manager, and Data Engineer.

While the funding has helped Keyrock scale its business, the startup is not looking for any additional capital raise. It is, however, constantly building partnerships that allow it to use debt to further finance the growth of its trading desks. De Patoul argues that all this culminates in Keyrock becoming a neo-investment bank for digital assets.

To achieve that goal, Keyrock has formed a strategic partnership with Deutsche Bank to advance its market-making operations and OTC activity. “It’s also a powerful step in bridging the gap between digital assets and conventional financial markets,” adds De Patoul.

The startup has also secured SOC 2 Type II compliance conducted by Deloitte and its recent partnership with The Tie allows the company to transform the transparency and understanding of market-making in the crypto industry. As Keyrock continues to develop its suite of products and services to fully serve the financial and trading needs of its clients and counterparties, there is a new wave of optimism around the crypto industry and this Belgian startup might find itself not only riding this wave but also setting the standards.