Elwood Technologies — an Alan Howard backed digital asset platform that is building trading infrastructure for institutional investors — closed a $70 million Series A last month co-led by Goldman Sachs and Dawn Capital.
In this episode of The Scoop, Elwood CEO James Stickland sits down with host Frank Chaparro to discuss Elwood’s recent fundraise, and to provide a closer look at the institutional activity that is occurring in the crypto market.
According to Stickland, institutional exposure to crypto “is more on the derivatives end of the market,” largely because of the lucrative spreads:
“Crypto derivative specialists are still able to make spreads they can drive buses through. Which is fantastic for them, which is obviously therefore creating FOMO, and with the synthetic nature and capability of it, is driving that real appetite.”
While derivatives are, for now, the extent of many institutions’ crypto exposure, Stickland claims that regulatory clarity regarding digital assets will “really allow engagement on spot and holding on balance sheet.”
Stickland views the combination of coming regulatory clarity along with more robust market infrastructure as having a powerful impact on the market in the long run:
“Getting great prime, getting great credit approved facilities, and the regulator making a call — that plus having some real stable infrastructure, that lights this thing up beyond all belief.”

Episode 51 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and James Stickland, CEO of Elwood Technologies.
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This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River
Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.
About Coinbase Prime
Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime.
About Cross River
Cross River is powering today’s most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River’s API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.