Stillman Digital

Stillman Digital is an institutional-grade digital asset liquidity provider that supplies electronic trade execution, algorithmic market making, OTC block trading, and stablecoin settlement services to exchanges, payment networks, miners, ETF issuers, and family offices operating in crypto markets.

Origins and Founding Team

Stillman Digital was incorporated in Florida in April 2021 and is headquartered in Miami. The company was co-founded by three principals who had previously worked in traditional financial services: Jonathon Milks (Co-founder and President), Jack West (Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer), and Luca Dumitru (Co-founder and Head of Operations). Milks and West both hold degrees from the University of Western Ontario. The broader leadership team includes a Chief Financial Officer (Paul Bozoki), a Chief Compliance Officer (Muhammad Darr), and a Head of Technology (Nikita Tolstunov), supported by an advisory board of capital markets veterans.

The company reached $1 billion in cumulative lifetime trading volume by May 2023 — approximately two years after launch — and crossed $30 billion in lifetime volume by April 2025.

Core Products and Services

Stillman Digital structures its offering across three main business lines:

Electronic Trade Execution. Clients access a 24/7 streaming price feed aggregated from more than 30 global exchanges and trading firms, executable via a web portal or API. The platform supports complex order types including TWAP and VWAP. Monthly volume on this line exceeds $500 million.

Algorithmic Market Making. Stillman provides two-sided liquidity on centralized limit order books through direct exchange partnerships. The market-making desk manages approximately $400 million in monthly volume and is co-located in the NY4 and LD4 Equinix data centers to minimize latency. The firm is integrated into Finery Markets' electronic communication network (ECN), where it streams firm quotes to payment companies, OTC desks, and brokers seeking competitive pricing across a broad set of asset pairs.

OTC Block Trading and On/Off-Ramp. The firm's OTC desk handles an average trade size exceeding $2 million, with daily on/off-ramp flows of $40-80 million and monthly OTC volume surpassing $1 billion. Trades are negotiated via a request-for-quote (RFQ) workflow using secure channels, designed to minimize market impact and slippage on large blocks.

A fourth pillar is the Stablecoin Settlement Network, which provides automated treasury operations and settlement infrastructure for institutional counterparties that need to move large fiat and stablecoin amounts efficiently.

Technology Infrastructure

The platform is built for institutional-grade reliability and security. Custody uses multi-party computation (MPC) encryption across multiple layers with real-time monitoring, and the infrastructure is independently audited. API connectivity is supported via FIX protocol, WebSocket, and REST interfaces. The firm maintains integrations with leading institutional infrastructure providers: Talos (algorithmic trading and order management), Fireblocks (custody and settlement), Chainalysis (blockchain analytics and compliance), Circle (USDC settlement), and Sumsub (KYC and compliance verification).

Regulatory Compliance

Stillman Digital operates under multi-jurisdictional regulatory licenses:

• FinCEN registration as a Money Services Business in the United States
• FINTRAC registration as a Money Services Business in Canada
• Class M DABA license in Bermuda

These registrations allow the firm to service institutional clients in North America and offshore financial centers. Global operations now span the United States, Canada, Bermuda, Switzerland, Dubai, and Sao Paulo.

Acquisition by DeFi Technologies

In October 2024, DeFi Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: DEFT) completed the acquisition of Stillman Digital, exchanging 2.5 million DeFi Technologies common shares (approximately CA$4.22 million at the time, or roughly $3-5 million USD) for all issued and outstanding Stillman securities. One million of those shares are subject to a one-year lock-up schedule. Stillman Digital now operates as a subsidiary and is described on its own website as "A DeFi Technologies Inc. Company."

The strategic rationale was complementary: DeFi Technologies had grown primarily through its Valour exchange-traded product (ETP) subsidiary targeting retail investors in European markets, while Stillman brought an institutional on-chain client base, a regulated OTC and market-making infrastructure, and demonstrated revenue through multiple market cycles. DeFi Technologies indicated it intends to leverage Stillman's liquidity infrastructure to support its DeFi Alpha arbitrage trading desk — which targets arbitrage opportunities across Ethereum, Solana, and other on-chain venues — and plans to expand Stillman's offering to include foreign exchange trading, custody services, and proprietary trading strategies.

Resilience and Growth Track Record

One notable data point from Stillman's history is that its on/off-ramp business grew 178% during the 2022 crypto bear market. The firm attributes this to institutional demand for reliable settlement infrastructure persisting even when speculative activity declines. Q2 2024 alone recorded $5 billion in trade volume, representing a step-change in throughput relative to earlier periods.

Ecosystem Fit

Stillman Digital sits at the intersection of traditional finance and digital asset markets, providing the liquidity plumbing that institutions require before they can meaningfully interact with on-chain ecosystems. While its primary services run across centralized venues, the firm's integration into DeFi Technologies' broader strategy directly touches Solana: DeFi Alpha, the arbitrage desk Stillman now supports, specifically targets Solana as one of its on-chain execution venues. Solana's high-throughput, low-cost settlement characteristics make it a natural venue for the kind of high-frequency institutional liquidity work that Stillman specializes in.