Institutional Trading Infrastructure

Overview

O1Labs is building privacy-preserving trading infrastructure for institutional finance, leveraging blockchain and privacy enhancing technologies. We are seeking a fractional product advisor with direct experience building or operating dark pools, alternative trading systems, or institutional execution infrastructure to provide structured input on product architecture and go-to-market decisions.

What You’ll Do

• Review and challenge proposed product architecture for privacy-preserving institutional solutions, including matching mechanisms, order routing, order types, and settlement flows

• Advise on licensing and registration requirements, compliance architecture, and regulatory sequencing based on direct experience with the process

• Evaluate proposed custody and clearing designs against institutional operational standards — what prime brokers, market makers, and execution desks actually require

• Identify gaps between our current product assumptions and real institutional trading workflows

• Provide structured feedback on go-to-market positioning for institutional counterparties (buy-side, sell-side, custodians)

What We’re Looking For

Required

• Direct experience building, operating, or holding a senior product role at a dark pool, ATS, or institutional execution venue

• Working knowledge of regulatory frameworks 

• Familiarity with institutional trading workflows: order routing, matching, clearing, settlement, and custody

• Ability to evaluate product designs from first principles and flag incorrect or misguided assumptions

Nice to Have

• Experience with digital asset trading infrastructure or tokenized securities

• Familiarity with privacy-enhancing and/or enterprise security technologies (TEEs, encryption technology, zero-knowledge proofs) in financial contexts

• Network across institutional trading — buy-side, sell-side, custodians, or prime brokers

• Prior advisory or board experience with early-stage fintech or infrastructure companies

What We Bring

• Deep expertise in zero-knowledge cryptography and privacy infrastructure 

• A specific, testable product hypothesis

• Flexibility on engagement structure and time commitment