Some of crypto’s most lucrative businesses have always been its exchanges, but crypto-based exchanges are coming to be less reliant on crypto trading. Liquid, which launched as a hub for crypto-based derivatives in 2025, closed an $18 million Series A round on the premise of being a 24/7 leveraged trading hub for retail traders of all stripes.
Less than six months after raising $7.6 million in a seed round led by the crypto venture capital firm Paradigm, Liquid’s latest round was co-led by Neo and Left Lane Capital. Haun Ventures, K5 Global, SV Angel, AntiFund, and Sunflower Capital also joined the round.
Liquid was founded by Franklyn Wang, a 25-year-old Harvard graduate who worked as a quantitative researcher at the quant…
