Grvt

Grvt

Type	Private
Industry	Cryptocurrency exchange, On-chain investment
Founded	May 2022
Founders	Hong Yea, Aaron Ong, Matthew Quek
Key people	Hong Yea (Co-founder) Aaron Ong (Co-founder) Matthew Quek (Co-founder)
Products	Cryptocurrency exchange, On-chain investment platform
Services	Trading, Self-custody, Blockchain settlement
Website	grvt.io

Grvt (pronounced “Gravity”) is a ZKsync-based cryptocurrency exchange and on-chain investment platform founded in May 2022. Grvt aims to revolutionize financial markets by integrating blockchain technology and self-custody solutions into both TradFi and DeFi. By applying blockchain settlement and trustless risk management to centralized order book infrastructure, Grvt is transforming trading and investment while upholding traditional security controls. The company was co-founded by former Goldman Sachs trader Hong Yea, ex-Facebook and Cronos Labs engineer Aaron Ong, and DBS Bank’s blockchain innovation leader Matthew Quek.

Within three years of its founding, the company emerged as one of the fastest-growing regulated crypto platforms globally, crossing over $12 billion in cumulative trading volume by 2025 Q3, less than 8 months after the public launch of its exchange.

History

The idea for Grvt was conceived in the spring of 2022, just weeks before a significant crash in the crypto markets. It officially launched in May 2022, and its timing proved prescient. When FTX, one of the largest centralized crypto exchanges, collapsed in November 2022, it validated Grvt's approach to building secure, trustless infrastructure for digital assets.

In September 2023, Grvt announced the successful close of its pre-seed and seed funding rounds, raising a total of $7.1 million. The $5 million seed round was co-led by Matrix Partners and Delphi Digital, with participation from prominent investors including Susquehanna Investment Group, CMS Holdings, ABCDE, Hack VC, and Matter Labs, the developer behind ZKsync. An earlier $2.1 million pre-seed round, completed in late 2022 was disclosed during this announcement, included backing from 500 Startups and Folius Ventures. Grvt's ability to raise capital amid a bearish crypto market was due in part to its compelling vision: a hybrid exchange that could prevent future collapses like FTX by offering users full self-custody without compromising on trading performance. Grvt's infrastructure—featuring off-chain order matching at up to 600,000 transactions per second, combined with on-chain settlements on zkSync’s Validium—was designed to deliver the speed of centralized exchanges like Binance or OKX while ensuring transparency and user ownership. The round also brought strategic support, including advisory from QCP Capital’s Darius Sit and Delphi Digital’s Tom Shaughnessy, and board participation from Matrix Partners’ Harry Man.

In December 2024, Grvt announced the official launch of its Mainnet Alpha, marking a historic milestone in the platform’s development. Positioned as the world’s first regulated decentralized exchange (DEX) while also functioning as a self-custodial centralized exchange (CEX), Grvt presented a unique hybrid model for secure, compliant, and user-driven trading. Within the first hour of launch, Grvt recorded over $15 million in trading volume, including $8.7 million in Bitcoin trades and $6.4 million in Ethereum trades. The inaugural institutional participants included firms such as QCP, Galaxy Trading Asia Limited, Ampersan, Arbelos, Amber Group, IMC, Flow Traders, Pulsar, and Selini. By this time, nearly 30,000 KYC-verified users had already registered on the platform, signaling strong initial adoption. The launch also introduced the Proxy Bridge solution, powered by XY Finance, enabling seamless asset transfers between Grvt accounts, centralized exchanges, and crypto wallets. This milestone highlighted Grvt’s broader industry-first initiatives, including obtaining a Class M Digital Asset Business License from the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA), securing contractual commitments of $4.2 billion in monthly trading volume from 55 institutional clients and 17 market makers and introducing gas-free cross-chain transactions from a CEX to a DEX. Grvt’s Mainnet is built as a Validium ZK Chain within the Elastic Network powered by ZKsync, designed to scale Ethereum while maintaining privacy and regulatory compliance. Industry leaders, including ZKsync co-inventor Alex Gluchowski, emphasized Grvt’s role in shaping the future of institutional-grade on-chain finance. Co-founder and CEO Hong Yea called the launch a “historic day” for the company, noting that Grvt aims to “redesign and rebuild the global financial system on blockchain” while pioneering the CeDeFi (Centralized-Decentralized Finance) landscape.

Also in December 2024, Grvt secured a Class M Digital Asset Business License from the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA). The 15-month licensing process coincided with the launch of Grvt’s institutional mainnet testing and reflects the company’s long-term strategy of unifying decentralized and traditional finance.

In January 2025, Grvt announced a $5 million strategic single-led equity investment round from Further Ventures, a venture capital firm backed by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, ADQ. The round brought Grvt’s total funding to $14.3 million, further strengthening its position as a next-generation hybrid crypto exchange. Unlike earlier rounds that included token warrants, this equity-only investment was structured to preserve the Grvt token for future community use and to support the company’s long-term diversification into multiple business lines. The announcement came shortly after the launch of Grvt’s mainnet alpha, built on Ethereum Layer 2 network zkSync, with initial offerings focused on perpetual trading. With the backing of Further Ventures—whose crypto portfolio includes Dfns, Twinstake, and Kemet Trading—Grvt outlined plans to expand into spot and options markets, and pursue further regulatory approvals across the EU, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM). Grvt’s headcount also grew rapidly, from 19 to 52 employees within a year.

In May 2025, Grvt surpassed $5 billion in trading volume just 120 days after its mainnet launch, signaling strong momentum for its hybrid exchange model. The milestone reflected the company’s distinctive approach to decentralized finance. Grvt’s architecture separates off-chain matching and risk logic from on-chain settlement, enabling sub-millisecond trade execution with self-custodial finality. Grvt positioned itself as a bridge between retail users and institutions, attracting over 40 institutional participants and major liquidity providers early on before its mainnet launch. The platform integrates zero-knowledge infrastructure, biometric trade signing, and multi-party computation (MPC) for enhanced privacy and security, all while enforcing compliance rules at the protocol level. Also in May 2025, Grvt launched its official Android mobile app on the Google Play Store, it also launched the iOS version later. The app enables users to trade perpetuals across more than 40 pairs, monitor their portfolios, participate in Grvt’s ongoing Liquidity League competition, and access a dedicated Rewards section. It then launched its iOS version. By this time, the platform had reached over $6.5 billion in total trading volume and surpassed 40,000 KYC-verified users.

In June 2025, Grvt made another industry-first move by introducing Retail Price Improvement (RPI) orders to its hybrid trading platform—a breakthrough feature that brings a proven tradition from legacy finance into the decentralized world. RPI orders are designed to offer better execution prices to retail traders by automatically matching them with quotes from select market makers, these quotes are exclusive to retail users who interact with the exchange UI directly, and are not accessible to algorithmic traders, ensuring a fair trading environment for everyone. When a trade is initiated, Grvt’s system checks behind the scenes for improved pricing opportunities, executing orders at more favorable levels when available. This process is fully automated, transparent, and keeps users' funds securely in their wallets throughout. The innovation marks a meaningful step forward for DeFi, demonstrating that advanced execution and trustless infrastructure can coexist. Grvt’s implementation of RPI levels the playing field for retail investors and preserves the principles of decentralization while enhancing usability and competitiveness. The launch was accompanied by a “tap and trade” competition across Grvt’s web and mobile platforms, encouraging users to engage with the new feature in real-time and experience firsthand the benefits of retail-focused liquidity innovation.

In July 2025, Grvt expanded its ecosystem with the launch of Grvt Strategies, a first-of-its-kind peer-to-peer on-chain investment marketplace. Built entirely on zkSync and governed by smart contracts, the platform enables users to allocate capital directly to professional investment strategies managed by institutional funds, quant trading firms, and independent crypto strategists. Unlike traditional investment vehicles, all strategies are non-custodial and transparent by design—with performance history, portfolio composition, and methodologies fully visible on-chain. The launch addressed longstanding challenges in the investment world, including limited access, opaque gatekeeping, and high entry thresholds, by automating the full lifecycle of fund operations using blockchain infrastructure. Initial strategy partners included names like Ampersan, AllDeFi, b-cube.ai, and Rogue Traders, with additional strategies slated to launch throughout the year. The company aims to onboard at least 15 strategy managers by the end of 2025 and reach $100 million in total value locked (TVL). In August 2025, Grvt announced a groundbreaking initiative to attract retail liquidity by introducing a −0.01% maker fee rebate for all users, effectively paying retail traders for placing maker orders. This move, typically reserved for institutional participants, positions Grvt as the first on-chain exchange to extend market-making rebates to retail users. The initiative is designed to boost market depth, attract greater institutional taker flow, and create a more balanced and liquid marketplace for everyone. By rewarding all users passively, Grvt aims to lower hidden costs, tighten spreads, and deepen order books - helping to reduce costs across the marketplace.

Technology and platform

Grvt’s core innovation lies in its hybrid architecture: an off-chain order-matching engine for speed and performance, paired with on-chain settlement through self-custodial smart contracts. Built on zkSync’s Elastic Chain, the platform offers sub-millisecond latency, 600,000 transactions per second, and zero gas trading for end users. This infrastructure allows Grvt to offer trading experiences comparable to traditional financial exchanges while maintaining the transparency and user control characteristic of DeFi. Users retain full ownership of their assets through non-custodial wallets, with all trades settled directly on blockchain via smart contracts.

In 2025, Grvt introduced the first-ever Retail Price Improvement (RPI) Orders in DeFi—a mechanism that ensures better pricing for everyday users, typically a feature seen only in institutional-grade trading systems. This innovation reflects Grvt’s mission to bridge the divide between retail and professional markets.

Grvt Strategies

Expanding beyond exchange functionality, Grvt launched Grvt Strategies, a decentralized, on-chain investment marketplace that democratizes access to diversified investment strategies. Through this product, users can directly allocate capital to professional fund managers, algorithmic trading strategies, and AI‑driven investment models—all without relying on intermediaries. The strategies operate entirely on-chain, ensuring performance, allocations, and risk profiles are transparent to users. The marketplace is designed to evolve into a global asset management ecosystem, with features like governance tools, incentives (such as APR boosters), and partner onboarding processes built into the smart contract infrastructure.

Leadership

Hong Yea, CEO and co-founder, brings a decade of trading experience from Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs. As an entrepreneur with international background in Malaysia and Poland, and business management education at Yonsei University in South Korea, Hong’s leadership is defined by his long-term vision to integrate blockchain into global capital markets.

Aaron Ong, CTO and co-founder, is a seasoned technical leader with a background at Facebook, Sea, and Crypto.com’s Cronos Labs. He has led teams across data privacy, DeFi, and NFT verticals, and served as a combat diver in the Singapore Navy. Aaron designed Grvt’s high-throughput technical architecture and leads its DevSecOps initiatives.

Matthew Quek, COO and co-founder, previously led blockchain strategy at DBS Bank, one of Asia’s largest financial institutions, and worked on the National Digital Identity Project. As a graduate of Columbia University with a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science and Computer Science, his background equips him with the acumen needed to bridge the gap between conventional and digital asset trading.

External links

• Grvt Official Website
• Grvt on X
• Grvt Android mobile app
• Grvt iOS mobile app