Portofino Technologies, a Switzerland-based crypto market-making firm, has revealed ambitious plans for 2025, according to CEO Leonard Lancia in an exclusive interview with CoinDesk.
The company is considering establishing new offices in both New York and Singapore, Lancia stated. Portofino currently holds regulatory licenses in the U.K., Switzerland, and the British Virgin Islands. It intends to broaden its licensing scope under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, which came into force on December 30, 2023.
In recent months, Portofino has made several significant senior hires. Dipak Shah has been appointed as the company’s head of over-the-counter (OTC) trading, based in London. Shah previously held the position of head of FX options trading at Nomura, a Japanese investment bank. Before that, he worked at Wall Street banks Citi and Goldman Sachs. Shah commented via email, “While clients and liquidity provision remain our number one priority, we have, and want to make investments in trading and technology talent to build and scale our business.”
Portofino’s strategic goals are to achieve market dominance across its three primary business segments: electronic market making, OTC trading, and token services. Shah added, “We have already hired many high calibre individuals in London, with further expansion planned in Asia and New York in terms of trading personnel.”
Founded in 2021 by former Citadel Securities leaders Leonard Lancia and Alex Casimo, Portofino secured $50 million in equity funding in late 2022. The firm reported a trading volume exceeding $100 billion in 2024.
The company is currently rebuilding following a number of staff departures last year, as previously reported by CoinDesk.
