Icon Trading CEO Suki Yang on Building Institutional-Grade Crypto Systems
Suki Yang’s trajectory from Quant to CEO reflects crypto’s institutional growing pains. Having shaped investment frameworks at Electric Capital, Pantera, and CertiK, she now leads Icon Trading—a venture addressing what she calls "crypto’s trillion-dollar operational gap."
The problem? Trading desks still rely on heroism rather than systems. "Scaling intuition is like bottling lightning," Yang observes. Her solution: replace star traders with auditable processes combining quant rigor and risk management.
This approach targets crypto’s structural quirks—fragmented liquidity, perpetual swaps, and cross-chain complexities—where human judgment alone falters. "Institutions need rails, not hunches," she adds, noting Icon’s early adoption by hedge funds and family offices.
