Crypto.com Names Iskandar Vanblarcum To Lead Exchange Push Into Prediction Markets

Crypto.com named Iskandar Vanblarcum managing director of the Crypto.com Exchange, placing a former London Stock Exchange Group and Barclays executive in charge of its institutional trading platform.

Vanblarcum will focus on expanding the Exchange’s client base and overseeing new products for institutional partners. His mandate includes planned regulated prediction markets and real-world asset offerings, with immediate work centered on an institutional-grade event-contract product.

The appointment gives Crypto.com a traditional-finance executive for a business line that increasingly sits between crypto markets, derivatives, tokenized assets and regulated event contracts. Vanblarcum spent more than 20 years in investment banking and financial market infrastructure before moving into digital assets in 2021.

His background includes senior roles at LSEG and Barclays Investment Bank. Inside digital assets, he has worked on institutional products, regulatory milestones, custody partnerships and market expansion across several jurisdictions, including MiCA alignment in Europe, VARA-related work in Dubai and licensing efforts in The Bahamas.

Prediction Markets Become A Core Expansion Target

Crypto.com’s next Exchange push is aimed at event contracts, a category that has moved quickly from niche prediction trading into a major regulated-market fight. Sports, elections, financial outcomes, macro data and cultural events have all become tradable markets across competing platforms.

The timing puts Crypto.com closer to the same growth cycle driving Kalshi, Polymarket and other prediction-market operators. Kalshi recently drew attention after reported talks around a possible $40 billion valuation, with sports contracts supplying a large share of its recent trading volume.

Crypto.com already has exposure to the category through its app and partnerships. Its wider site lists prediction markets across sports, financials, elections and economics, while recent partnerships with OG Prediction Markets and FanDuel Predicts have pushed the company deeper into event-contract distribution.

Regulatory pressure remains part of the same market. State-level lawsuits and federal oversight debates have intensified as platforms test whether sports-related event contracts should be treated as federally regulated derivatives or state-regulated betting products. Kentucky’s recent actions against Kalshi and Polymarket followed a broader fight in which prediction-market operators challenged state tax and sportsbook claims.

RWA Products Add Institutional Collateral Angle

The Exchange role also covers planned RWA offerings. Crypto.com has already moved into tokenized collateral, with the Exchange set to accept BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized fund as trading collateral for eligible institutional clients and advanced traders in select jurisdictions.

That move fits the broader institutional RWA cycle, where tokenized Treasury funds, money-market products, equities, commodities and credit assets are being used for settlement, margin, collateral and balance-sheet management. The tokenized RWA market recently crossed about $31 billion as productive collateral became a larger part of the market structure.

Crypto.com Exchange now combines spot trading, margin trading, derivatives, OTC execution, RWA-perpetuals and crypto infrastructure services for banks, brokers, exchanges and fintech firms, with product access still subject to jurisdictional rules.