Case Study: How a Regional Brokerage Launched Crypto Trading in 2 Weeks — Without Adding a Single Engineer

Background

In early 2025, a mid-sized brokerage faced a challenge that’s becoming increasingly familiar across financial institutions.

Clients — many of them younger, globally savvy investors — were asking for access to digital assets. Competitors were starting to respond. And the firm’s leadership knew that standing still meant falling behind.

But they faced a dilemma:

• They didn’t have a dedicated crypto team.
• Their tech roadmap was already packed for the year.
• And they couldn’t afford a multi-million dollar, 18-month infrastructure build.
• They needed a way to move fast without overextending their resources.

The Problem

The firm’s core platform was well-established for equities and FX, but had no support for digital assets.

Building internally would have required:

• New wallet infrastructure and custody arrangements
• Comprehensive compliance systems for KYC/AML
• Reporting and reconciliation capabilities
• Specialist engineers and product managers.

This wasn’t just expensive — it was a distraction from their core business.
Yet, doing nothing risked losing a growing segment of clients to competitors and retail crypto platforms.

The Approach

Instead of building from scratch, the firm decided to embed crypto infrastructure through BetterX.

This allowed them to:

• Integrate trading and custody into their existing client platform via APIs
• Maintain their brand and client experience through full white-labelling
• Rely on BetterX’s built-in compliance stack, covering custody, KYC/AML, and regulatory reporting
• Skip hiring engineers — the integration was handled by their existing product and ops teams

The entire process was designed to slot into their existing operational workflows, not create new ones.

Integration started in late Q1. In two weeks, they were live.

The Results

🚀 Launch Timeline: 2 weeks from kickoff to first live trade.
👥 Client Adoption: 18% of active clients opted into crypto trading within the first two months.
💰 Revenue Impact: Trading activity exceeded initial forecasts by 22%, with incremental fee revenue generated from the new product line.
🔒 Compliance Confidence: The firm passed its internal audit and regulator review with no additional compliance hires.

Crucially, the firm’s leadership team reported that the integration did not slow down any of their core tech projects — something they had assumed was impossible at the outset.

Key Lessons

1. Speed matters more than perfection.
   The brokerage initially hesitated because they imagined a massive build. In reality, embedding infrastructure allowed them to move quickly and adjust as needed.
2. Compliance doesn’t have to be a blocker.
   By leveraging BetterX’s regulatory stack, they accelerated internal approvals and avoided hiring costly specialists.
3. White-labelling preserves client trust.
   Clients never left the firm’s ecosystem. The crypto offering felt native — not bolted on.
4. Opportunity cost is real.
   Had they delayed for a year, they would have lost both client engagement and early revenue.

The Bottom Line

This case study isn’t an anomaly. Across financial institutions — whether brokerages, trading desks, or family offices — firms are finding that partnering beats building when speed, compliance, and client experience all matter.

BetterX makes this possible. The infrastructure is there. The question is how fast you want to move.

👉 Book a demo to see how your firm can follow the same path.