Why I Founded Acheron Trading

Guided by a paragon of high moral integrity

When I was about 8 years old, my mom, a licensed CPA, uncovered an elaborate fraud scheme during her interview for a position as controller at a country club in Florida. She discovered that the person who had occupied the position before her had funneled company earnings to himself. The FBI got involved, brought in forensic accountants, and sent her predecessor to jail. I didn’t understand much at my young age, but what I did know was that my mom had helped serve justice. 

Later on, the management of that very same country club asked her to falsify expense reporting to make the current year’s earnings look stronger, in turn generating a larger bonus for all of them, including herself. Despite the holidays coming up and her status as a single mother, my mother refused to cross her ethical boundaries and handed in her resignation on the spot.  Though I was still young, I once again understood that my mom had just made a really difficult decision. She prioritized making the right decision over all else, showcasing her unwavering integrity and making it a core value that guides my own personal and professional decisions.

Years later, I found myself replicating my mom’s course. I became a licensed CPA, I uncovered a fraudulent ICO scam and sent the culprit to jail. Every day as a market maker, I am faced with the opportunity to make a profit—as my mom was when asked to falsify expenses—and I choose not to, without a single ounce of hesitation. 

The course that led me to found Acheron Trading

I discovered Bitcoin when I was acting as a TA to cover my master’s tuition costs. A friend of mine who was sitting in my office suddenly started screaming frantically at his computer so I ran over to ask “What are you looking at?” to which he said “Oh, it’s the bitcoin price.” Subsequent research unlocked my fascination for this new digital asset class and the technology that underlies it. 

This discovery also happened to follow my internship at PwC, where I spent my days faxing and calling banks to confirm bank balances. When I learned more about blockchain—a distributed ledger that could verify a balance in a matter of seconds in an indisputable way—I realized everything I had just spent doing every day for three months could be made totally redundant. So I started to think about what else in my career, which at the time was in accounting, could be made redundant. The answer seemed to be: almost everything. My career choice instantly felt useless. 

I became more involved in crypto trading when Prime Minister Modi demonetized the 500, and 1000 rupee notes at a time when BTC was trading at a 35% premium on the Indian-based exchanges. It was after experiencing that event that I realized how crazy it was that a random retail end user could come in and execute arbitrage in this way, further driving my fascination for the technology. 

I ended up joining forces with a friend of mine to research fundamental valuation techniques for bitcoin and other digital assets, resulting in a whitepaper that we put out in 2017. Our growing expertise enabled us to get involved with Aenigma Capital, where I was quickly appointed as Head of Trading as one of the only people on the team with experience transacting in digital assets. 

It was at this point in time when I noticed that some of the assets we had invested in that were then going through their “crypto IPO” equivalent—the most critical day for a given asset—on major exchanges had absolutely no liquidity. My thesis was that if there was more liquidity in these assets, they would go through more robust price discovery and therefore lead to better investment returns for the fund.

To solve this problem I tried to reach out to my network and find a market maker that I could connect our portfolio companies with. The result? I got connected to shady, unprofessional operators. 

I was taken aback, to say the least. Market makers are one of the most critical components for the entire ecosystem to operate effectively. Upon noticing their surprising absence in the digital asset space, I decided to take what small amount of savings I had on the side at the time to start what was then called Liquid Solutions Malta (LSM). What I found was that even before we were finished building the proof-of-concept around a rudimentary algorithm that would provide day one liquidity, people in my network started asking if they could hire us. “This is crazy” was my initial reaction, “we haven’t even finished the initial proof of concept.” And so I went all in, giving life to Acheron Trading.

Fast forward to 2019 when I met our current CEO, Laurent Benayoun, who told me about how we could license his company, Hedge Tech’s, technology and achieve more scalability. The relationship proved to be so strong that in Q4 of 2022, I led the acquisition of Hedge Tech and merged it with Acheron Trading. 

We are pioneers in the digital asset space

To bring it back full circle, I think back to how my background as a second-generation CPA and the integrity and morals that were impressed upon me during my childhood have informed the culture that we have at Acheron Trading. These values define who we are as a company, promoting transparency and prudent firm management above all else. In an industry rife with fraud, where every day we are given the opportunity to do the wrong thing and make a profit, we’ve always kept true our core values. That’s why in 2022, Acheron Trading seamlessly navigated the great cleansing of the market making landscape, emerging unscathed where so many others were beaten down.

We value an inclusive work environment, true freedom, and the opportunities technology is bringing to humanity. The importance we place on these is felt by our team, as evidenced by the very low turnover we’ve experienced since we came to be. At the end of the day, we hire the absolute best people for any particular job, no matter their origin or ethnicity. 

The one commonality we all have is that everyone, from top to bottom, has a winner’s mindset. We don’t just aim to reach goals, but to exceed them. Acheron Trading is aiming to be number one in the digital asset space; we are true pioneers building tech to service liquidity transparently and at scale for this massive new asset class.