Citadel Securities, the market-making firm founded by billionaire Ken Griffin, is in preparations to launch a digital assets trading ecosystem for brokerages, according to a source with knowledge of the process. 

Involved in the preparations are market-making firm Virtu as well as venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Paradigm, the source said. CoinDesk first reported the details of the plan on Tuesday.

Both Sequoia and Paradigm took part in a $1.15 billion funding round for Citadel Securities earlier this year, as previously reported. Citadel Securities is a separate entity from Citadel LLC, the hedge fund also founded by Griffin.

The idea is that the ecosystem will enable brokers to source liquidity and offer crypto services to their end clients. Anti-money laundering and know-your-customer procedures will form part of this ecosystem, according to the source. 

Griffin previously indicated in March that the firm would eventually become a market maker in the crypto sector, telling Bloomberg that crypto "has been one of the great stories in finance over the course of the last 15 years."

Griffin said that he had been "the naysayer" for a long time, but had turned back around.

"The crypto market today has a market capitalization of about $2 trillion in round numbers, which tells you that I haven’t been right on this call," he said.