STS Digital has expanded its digital asset derivatives business by combining automated trading with customised investment and risk management services. Development has centred on building the infrastructure and institutional relationships needed to deliver sophisticated products across continuously operating markets.
STS has established a principal trading business that takes the other side of clients’ transactions, providing liquidity and assuming market risk directly. Its offering spans conventional options, more complex derivatives and structured investments, giving institutions tools to hedge exposures, generate income and manage digital asset holdings.
The firm has executed more than $6 billion in cumulative trading volume across its global business. Its product coverage extends to more than 400 digital assets, while clients can customise option maturities, exercise prices and combinations of contracts. This flexibility supports transactions tailored to specific holdings and investment objectives, including exposures beyond the most actively traded cryptocurrencies.
STS generates prices when clients request them, avoiding the need to maintain continuous buy and sell orders for every possible contract. This approach supports a wide range of bespoke options without requiring an equally extensive network of standing orders across less liquid tokens.
Extending distribution through Kraken
The integration of STS’s API, which connects its trading systems directly with those of other institutions, into cryptocurrency exchange Kraken marked a significant expansion of its distribution capabilities. The connection powers Kraken’s options offering, allowing the exchange to draw on STS’s pricing and derivatives capabilities.
Kraken selected STS following a competitive assessment of providers and an extensive evaluation of its platform. The relationship brought together STS’s ability to price and manage derivatives with an established exchange’s customer reach, extending the firm’s role beyond serving clients individually.
Operating 24/7 requires strong operational processes. Everything has to be systematic and rule based because manual processes do not scale
Maxime Seiler
The integration also put its automated infrastructure to work within another institution’s trading service. Pricing, trade recording, execution and hedging operate around the clock, supporting activity through overnight sessions and weekends. Clients can additionally access STS through its trading portal and chat-based dealing, accommodating different trading workflows.
This distribution model accompanied a broader change in its customer base. From an initial focus on token foundations, project founders and venture investors, STS expanded its relationships to encompass hedge funds, asset managers, banks, custodians and exchanges. These institutions can use its liquidity to support services for their own customers.
Strengthening the operating framework
Alongside its commercial expansion, STS progressed through successive regulatory stages to obtain a full digital asset business licence. The approval removed operating caps associated with earlier stages, creating greater scope to scale the business.
The progression involved strengthening infrastructure, formalising operational processes and expanding monitoring, control testing and cybersecurity audits. Regulation and automation developed together, with the firm building systems capable of supporting continuous trading while meeting institutional oversight requirements.
“Operating 24/7 requires strong operational processes. Everything has to be systematic and rule based because manual processes do not scale,” says CEO Maxime Seiler. “Our main principle was to be regulated from day one, within a framework that gives us institutional credibility.”
Turning trading capabilities into investment solutions
STS has also developed its structured products platform, combining options, underlying asset exposure and risk management techniques into investments tailored to clients’ objectives. Its offering includes income-generating strategies, capital-protected structures and products designed to provide specified participation in market movements.
These capabilities address distinct institutional needs. Venture investors can hedge token investments that have not yet vested, while holders of substantial token positions can sell options to generate income. The firm’s digital asset treasury offering applies related techniques to organisations’ holdings, supporting liquidity management, diversification and volatility mitigation.
STS has announced an expansion of its structured products platform to accommodate tokenised equities, FX and commodities alongside cryptocurrencies. The broader design extends its trading and structuring technology across additional asset classes, with products configured around clients’ investment horizons, desired returns and tolerance for risk.
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