The LSE Directory / Crypto exchanges
Backpack is a cryptocurrency exchange and self-custodial wallet company that launched its exchange to the public in 2024, offering spot and perpetual-futures crypto trading and lending, and, since July 2026, tokenized US equities through a companion Backpack Securities product. It also runs the non-custodial Backpack Wallet, which supports Solana, Ethereum and Bitcoin assets, and produced the Mad Lads NFT collection, one of the best known NFT projects built on Solana. Backpack differentiates itself from crypto-native rivals such as Deribit and Bybit by building its derivatives business on acquired regulatory licenses rather than operating purely offshore. In January 2025 it bought the remnant European entity of the collapsed FTX exchange for $32.7 million, gaining a Cyprus CySEC MiFID II license, reissued to its Trek Labs Europe entity in mid-2025 after a EUR 200,000 settlement tied to prior FTX-era conduct, that it used to launch regulated crypto derivatives across the EU. It added a second EU authorization on 27 May 2026, when Latvia's central bank, Latvijas Banka, granted its Trek Technologies SIA entity a MiCA crypto-asset service provider license alongside a payment institution license, one of a small number of EU firms holding both. It separately holds a virtual-asset exchange license from Dubai's VARA, held since October 2023, and is a Type 2 member of Japan's crypto industry association (JVCEA), working toward a Japanese exchange license. The company was founded in 2022 by Armani Ferrante, a former Apple software engineer who had previously built Anchor, a widely used Solana smart-contract development framework, together with Tristan Yver, formerly head of strategy at FTX US; Can Sun, FTX International's former general counsel, who later testified against Sam Bankman-Fried, joined shortly after as a co-founder overseeing legal and compliance. Backpack lost $14.5 million, 88 percent of its operating funds, when FTX collapsed in November 2022 while it was still building its wallet product, and continued regardless. It raised a $17 million Series A round in February 2024, led by Placeholder VC with participation from Hashed, Amber Group, Wintermute Ventures, Selini Capital and Delphi Digital, at a $120 million valuation. By early 2026 the exchange reported close to $400 billion in cumulative trading volume and daily volume regularly above $1 billion, serving customers in more than 150 countries. In 2026 Backpack pushed beyond crypto trading twice in quick succession: a January private beta of the Unified Prediction Portfolio let customers trade crypto, financial and real-world event predictions from the same cross-margined account as their spot and perpetuals positions, and a July 10, 2026 launch of Backpack Securities began offering tokenized shares of companies including SpaceX, Micron and SanDisk for round-the-clock trading, with the company saying it plans to add more listings over time.
