Yesterday, cryptocurrency market maker Keyrock announced a $72 million Series B funding round. It includes SIX Fintech Ventures and Middlegame Ventures, who participated in its €4.3m Series A two years ago. Ripple joined Series B as a new sponsor.

“Keyrock has provided scalable liquidity solutions to all types of stakeholders in the digital asset space, including Ripple,” said Maxime Fages, Ripple’s Director of Institutional Markets. “We have been partners for more than three years and have seen the global success of Keyrock.”

Founded in Belgium, the company has an office in London with plans to expand to Switzerland and Singapore in 2023. It says its trade volume tripled last year, while market activity dropped by 50%.

Market making in crypto is focused on algorithmic trading and Keyrock participates in 85 venues including centralized and decentralized exchanges.

It can be risky business. Alameda Research went bankrupt last month, prompting a suspension of withdrawals at Genesis Capital, the lending arm of market maker Genesis Trading. Some of the biggest players in the sector are tied to high-frequency trading firms like Cumberland (DRW), Virtu Financial, and Jump Crypto. Major native cryptocurrency players include B2C2, GSR, Wintermute, and SBI-owned Kairon Labs.

Meanwhile, SIX has made several investments in the digital asset sector in addition to its own SIX Digital Exchange (SDX), which is active in both crypto and traditional tokenized securities. Other SIX blockchain investments have included daura, Custodigit and Omniex.

Speaking of Keyrock, Andreas Iten, Head of SIX Fintech Ventures, said: “They have shown incredible resilience and with the current foundation round we believe that Keyrock will establish itself as one of the top-tier liquidity solution providers for digital assets not only in Europe but worldwide. ”