The move aims to strengthen Bitfrost’s position as a gateway bridge between the worlds of fiat and digital money for financial institutions

Today, Fintech company Bitfrost completed its first major acquisition, by acquiring OKONTO, a leading global institutional crypto OTC and lending provider. This adds to Bitfrost’s ability to provide all-important cryptocurrency services and consulting to its growing list of institutional clients.

Despite the technology-focused acquisition, Bitfrost has also accumulated knowledge and talent by onboarding OKONTO’s top financial experts. As part of the acquisition, Anton Chaschin, Co-Founder of OKONTO joins Bitfrost as Managing Partner to lead Bitfrost’s Lending and Prime Services and expand licencing and operations in Switzerland, EU, Gibraltar, Singapore and other Asian markets.

Anton Chaschin says, “Fintech proves that banking is possible without banks. Today's banking services lack profitability and flexible scalable solutions, so the industry should recognise that cryptocurrencies can both improve their businesses and have the necessary level of security and stability. It’s time banks and the crypto industry integrate their resources and evolve together. Bitfrost, together with OKONTO are going to realise that.”

With OKONTO now part of the Bitfrost ecosystem, the OKONTO team will focus on technical development and support for all Bitfrost’s blockchain and fintech products. A significant factor in the acquisition was OKONTO’s commitment to licensed crypto operations. Bitfrost supports this approach and has already started license expansion to have global regulatory coverage. According to Chaschin, Bitfrost is currently in the process of obtaining licences in Gibraltar, Switzerland, Cyprus, Hong Kong and UK.

Chaschin adds, “The acquisition of OKONTO fully aligns with Bitfrost's main goal of becoming a leading global fintech ecosystem that will provide much-needed consultation for banking and crypto services in order to eliminate trade barriers. OKONTO was chosen as a representative of the crypto world because it met the compliance and security standards of Bifrost. OKONTO already has an impressive client base of European family offices, so we are delighted to be welcomed into the Bitfrost ecosystem.”