The LSE Directory / Crypto exchanges
Swan Bitcoin, doing business as Swan, is a Calabasas, California based financial services firm that deals exclusively in bitcoin. Its core retail product lets customers set up instant or recurring, dollar-cost-averaging, bitcoin purchases through a web app and iOS and Android apps, with output going to Swan's institutional custody, a self-custody Swan Vault, or a Swan IRA for tax-advantaged retirement accounts. Swan Vault is a 2-of-3 multisignature self-custody service built around Blockstream Jade Plus hardware wallets, with two keys held by the customer and one Cloud Key held by Swan subject to a 72-hour withdrawal hold; users can also manage a Vault independently through the open-source Specter Desktop wallet. Swan also runs Swan Private, a wealth-management arm for high-net-worth clients, families and businesses, and a developer-facing Swan API. Swan's defining differentiator against multi-asset exchanges is that it lists bitcoin only, positioning itself as an adoption platform for long-term holders rather than a trading venue for altcoins. On the institutional side it launched bitcoin-backed lending in 2024, collateralizing loans at roughly 50% loan-to-value, and states it does not rehypothecate customer collateral, a point CEO Cory Klippsten has framed as a contrast with the collapsed lenders Celsius and Genesis. In 2025 Swan added Real Bitcoin Exchange (RBX), a Swan Private service that converts spot bitcoin ETF shares into actual on-chain bitcoin through an in-kind transaction structured to avoid triggering a taxable sale, aimed at holders of large, low-cost-basis ETF positions such as family offices and trusts. Swan was founded in 2019 by Cory Klippsten, who previously worked at Google, McKinsey, Microsoft and Morgan Stanley and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago; he remains CEO. Yan Pritzker, whose prior startup Reverb was acquired by Etsy in 2019 and who wrote the beginner-focused book "Inventing Bitcoin," is co-founder and CTO. In 2023 Swan reported annualized revenue of 125 million dollars as of November and said it deployed over 200 million dollars that year across venture and private equity investments, a hedge fund and a credit fund, alongside roughly 165 million dollars in equity funding. In September 2023 Swan and custodian BitGo announced plans to form what they described as the first bitcoin-only trust company in the United States, subject to regulatory approval, building on BitGo's existing cold-storage custody of Swan customer coins. Swan closed a Series C funding round in 2025 (amount undisclosed in its own announcement) alongside the launch of Swan International, extending its wealth services to clients outside the US through custody partners including BitGo and Equity Trust, and the hire of a Head of Private Wealth. Klippsten has said Swan is again pursuing a Nasdaq listing, targeting early 2026, after shelving an earlier IPO attempt when the company shut its managed bitcoin-mining division; as of this research pass Swan had not filed to register the offering with the SEC.
