Earnings Call Transcript - VIRT Q2 2025

Operator, Operator

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Virtu Financial 2025 Second Quarter Results. My name is Elliot, and I'll be your coordinator for today. I would now like to hand over to Andrew Smith, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Andrew Smith, Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, Elliot. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Our second quarter 2025 results were released this morning and are available on our website. With us today on this morning's call, we have Mr. Douglas Cifu, our Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Joseph Molluso, our Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer; and Ms. Cindy Lee, our Chief Financial Officer. We will begin with prepared remarks and then take your questions. First, a few reminders. Today's call may include forward-looking statements, which represent Virtu's current belief regarding future events and are, therefore, subject to risks, assumptions and uncertainties, which may be outside the company's control. Please note that our actual results and financial conditions may differ materially from what is indicated in these forward-looking statements. It is important to note that any forward-looking statements made on this call are based on information presently available to the company, and we do not undertake to update or revise any forward-looking statements as new information becomes available. We refer you to disclaimers in our press release and encourage you to review the description of risk factors contained in our annual report, Form 10-K, and other public filings. During today's call, in addition to GAAP measures, we may refer to certain non-GAAP measures, including adjusted net trading income, adjusted net income, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin. These non-GAAP measures should be considered supplemental to and not as superior to financial measures as reported in accordance with GAAP. We direct listeners to consult the Investor portion of our website, where you'll find additional supplemental information referred to on this call as well as a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the equivalent GAAP term in the earnings materials with an explanation of why we deem this information to be meaningful as well as how management uses these measures. And with all that, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Doug Cifu.

Douglas A. Cifu, CEO

Thank you very much, Andrew, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning. In my remarks today, I will focus on Virtu's second quarter 2025 performance and strategic initiatives. Following my remarks, Joe and Cindy will provide additional details on our results. We realized outstanding results across our businesses in the second quarter, fueled by market turmoil around tariffs, economic policy and general volatility. We recorded $568 million in adjusted net trading income, which is $9.2 million per day, and $1.53 in adjusted EPS, both numbers recent highs and reflective of our ongoing investments, growth initiatives across the firm and the macro environment. Market Making contributed $451 million and Execution Services contributed $116 million. While we believe significant opportunities remain in both cases, we believe that our core business and growth initiatives performed well against the opportunity set that we addressed. It was our sixth straight quarter of increasing adjusted net trading income overall. Our growth initiatives were particularly strong this quarter, reaching an all-time high of $1.3 million per day or 15% of our total adjusted net trading income per day of $9.2 million. Our growing ETF block franchise and global digital asset desk led the group with strong performances from our options market making as well. In ETF block, the volumes and volatility surrounding Liberation Day and the ongoing tariff news drove elevated client demand for our ETF desk. We continue to grow our market share and client list globally for ETFs, and we remain focused on the build-out of our Europe ETF block offering. In digital assets, our expanding capabilities continue to yield attractive results as we extended our Market Making to additional tokens and asset classes. We remain excited about this space for many reasons, which we will discuss further in a moment. Our customer Market Making business was strong given the market conditions, especially at the start of the quarter. Retail engagement remains strong at or above the elevated post-pandemic baseline, and our executed shares and dollar value of quoted spreads reflect recent highs. As you know, mean realized volatility was 30, and the VIX average 24. However, median daily realized volatility and intraday volatility were up low single digits quarter-over-quarter, illustrating a favorable environment that was closer to the first quarter. Equity TCV was up 17% against the already healthy first quarter levels or about 12% if you exclude sub-dollar share volumes, and notional U.S. equity volumes were up 9% quarter-to-quarter. Our noncustomer Market Making business continued to deliver growth and a strong performance against the growing dynamic opportunity in the quarter. Our global equities franchise and noncustomer market making delivered excellent performances, as did our ETF block business, which had another record quarter. Crypto and options also performed exceedingly well thanks to both enhancements and extensions of our capabilities and the elevated opportunity set in the quarter. In crypto, in particular, our capabilities have grown to cover more markets and more symbols than ever across futures, spot, perpetual futures and ETFs globally. Our institutional business, Virtu Execution Services, recorded $116 million in adjusted net trading income, a recent high. As we have mentioned on prior calls, we believe that the VES business could grow to a consistent $2 million per day through the cycle, and we are well on our way to achieving this goal. We recorded two straight quarters of around $1.9 million per day, and we believe this has room to grow. Since taking on the Execution Services business as a strategic imperative before we made any acquisitions, we have relied on our ability to develop best-in-class technology and products. Today, we are proud to serve approximately 2,000 global buy-side and sell-side clients. A key avenue of growth within VES comes from converting our products like Triton, our market-leading EMS, into multi-asset class products to serve our clients' fixed income, FX and option needs. Virtu Capital Markets, which has been a pioneer in implementing at-the-market offerings for corporate issuers, produced an outstanding quarter in the second quarter of 2025, its best on record. We believe more growth will come from cross-selling within our broad network of VES clients and strategic partners, penetrating new and growing client categories, rolling out offerings like VTS, Virtu technology services, and continued enhancements to monetizing our flow and technology. Since growing this business substantially by acquiring ITG, Virtu has solidified the revenue base, cut costs dramatically, and made strategic hires to expand our addressable market across multiple dimensions. We continue to see strong tailwinds for Virtu. Sustained retail engagement post-pandemic remains a positive backdrop, and several structural trends should help compound our growth in the coming quarters. First, we're encouraged by the emerging interest in overnight equity trading. While still early, we're working with clients, regulators, and market participants to help shape a robust framework that gives global investors easier access to U.S. capital markets. Second, digital assets are becoming a meaningful growth opportunity. Institutional demand continues to build, and we're expanding our capabilities, adding more coins, tokens and protocols across a growing network of venues and brokers. We see broader crypto adoption as a significant driver of future volume and activity for Virtu as we scale our capabilities and offerings. Third, the regulatory landscape is moving in a constructive direction. The GENIUS stablecoin legislation and the pending CLARITY crypto market structure act and innovations in tokenization are all positive developments for Virtu. Tokenization, in particular, creates new products that need liquidity and order routing, playing directly to our 24/7 market-making strengths. As participation in crypto markets grows, so does the need for liquidity and price discovery. Virtu is well-positioned to meet that demand, and we expect to remain a key partner to banks, venues, brokers and institutional clients as this ecosystem develops. I want to end on a personal note and share some news about our leadership transition. After 18 wonderful years, I've decided to retire at the end of this year to spend more time with my family. It has been a tremendous privilege to work for so long with an enormously talented group of individuals. This has been the defining chapter of my career, and I couldn't be more proud and grateful for what we've accomplished together. When we started Virtu in 2008, we had a bold vision to transform electronic market making by building a technologically enabled scaled global firm that could consistently deliver the best bid and best offering. We set out to revolutionize how markets operate through cutting-edge technology and relentless innovation. We have built one of the industry's leading trading platforms, serving clients across multiple asset classes and geographies. Along the way, we strategically acquired KCG and ITG, which strengthened our technology foundation, expanded our market reach, and most importantly, created tremendous value for our shareholders and clients. What I am the most proud of is the incredible team we've built. The innovation, dedication, and client focus I see every day from our employees give me complete confidence in the future. I can't thank my life partner and friend, Vinnie Viola, enough for allowing me this opportunity. Virtu's businesses are stronger than ever, and our scope, reach, and scale leave us poised to continue to thrive and prosper and have been left in extremely competent hands. I am thrilled to announce that my friend and protégé, if you will, Aaron Simons, our Chief Technology Officer, who has been with Virtu basically from the beginning for two decades, will be stepping into the CEO role. Aaron has been instrumental in building our technology backbone and has the strategic vision to take us to the next level. This transition represents continuity of our core values and culture, combined with a fresh perspective on our growth opportunities. I'll be staying on as an advisor to ensure a seamless handover and will remain deeply invested in our success. I couldn't be more optimistic about our future, and I'm excited to watch us continue to thrive under Aaron's great leadership. With that, I will turn it over to my friend, Joe Molluso. Joe?

Joseph A. Molluso, Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer

Thank you, Doug. I'll just underline a few points that you went through and add some additional color. Look, our adjusted EBITDA margin of 65% was the highest since the first quarter of '22. We achieved this margin by holding expenses in line as we've done over the long term. Adjusted cash operating expenses were $198 million in the quarter, and our compensation ratio was 19%, including cash and 23%, including stock. Notably, we've grown and built out significant new businesses and continue to attract top-notch talent while holding headcount relatively steady and our compensation ratio within historical norms. And as I mentioned in my remarks last quarter, despite significant volatility in our quarter-to-quarter results, which we expect to continue over time, there is a long-term up-and-to-the-right skew to our results and our growth. As you can see on Slide 12 in the supplemental materials, we ended the quarter with over $2 billion of trading capital, buffered by significant additional liquidity sources. We bought back $66 million of our shares in the quarter and year-to-date have bought back $135 million. And then since the inception of our share repurchase program, we've repurchased $1.4 billion worth of shares at an average cost of a little over $26. We view this deployment of capital as strategic, and we continue to evaluate our repurchase program going forward and expect to be within the ranges that we have published publicly. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Cindy to complete the prepared remarks.

Cindy Lee, Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Joe. Good morning, everyone. On Slide 3 of our supplemental materials, we provided a summary of our quarterly performance. Looking at our performance trajectory, our second quarter 2025 adjusted net trading income of $568 million or $9.2 million per day represents a 50% increase from the $6.1 million per day in Q2 2024. Our normalized adjusted EPS of $1.53 for the second quarter 2025 increased 83% compared to Q2 2024. Our adjusted EBITDA margin of 65% demonstrated our disciplined expense management approach and operational efficiency. In Q2 2025, we repurchased 1.7 million shares for a total of $66 million. To date, we have repurchased almost 54 million shares at an average price of $26.35 per share for a total of $1.4 billion, representing close to 20% of our fully diluted shares outstanding, net of issuance. Our balance sheet remains well positioned with the debt to LTM adjusted EBITDA ratio of 1.5x, providing us with financial flexibility while maintaining our commitment to returning capital to our shareholders through our dividend and share repurchase program. Now I would like to turn the call over to the operator for the Q&A.

Operator, Operator

First question comes from Ken Worthington with JPMorgan.

Kenneth Brooks Worthington, Analyst

Doug, congratulations on all you've built and accomplished. It's been a pleasure working with you. Can you give us an introduction to Aaron, give us maybe some more color on his responsibilities and accomplishments at Virtu and what the transition from you to Aaron will look like over the next 6 months or 5 months?

Douglas A. Cifu, CEO

Sure, sure. That's a great question. Thank you very much for your kind words. So just some background on Aaron, which you can read his CV. I mean, he's a very intellectually powerful man. As I have always told people, he is, in my view, the smartest guy at Virtu. I first met Aaron in May of 2008, maybe a month after we had started Virtu when he interviewed. I distinctly remember the interview because I understood very little of what he was trying to describe, which was his dissertation on string theory. But I remember thinking this is maybe the smartest, most articulate, decent person I've ever met in my life, and I wouldn't let him leave the office, which was a very small start-up office, until he had agreed to work at Virtu and thankfully, he did. He began his career at Virtu in August of 2008. Aaron was a developer and a trader, and he probably made some coffee at the time and put together some furniture. So he knows the spirit, the culture, and, if you will, the zeitgeist of Virtu from the beginning. He's always been, I will immodestly say, my friend and my mentee. Through the years, we're not big on titles until more recently, but he's always been in the inner sanctum of Virtu and someone that I relied on for advice about the firm. When I didn't understand something, including my kids' geometry homework, Aaron would do that for me and for the firm. He is well-liked within the firm. About 5 or 6 years ago, triggered by the growth of the firm and the pandemic and with the advice and counsel of my Board and Vinnie, we put together a senior leadership team at this firm. Some of it is obviously described in the public filings, but we have Joe, Brett, Steve Cavoli, and Aaron Simons, and they were the kind of the four horsemen that really began to guide and lead the firm. Not that I was actively transitioning, but I definitely took a step back in the micro-managing day-to-day of a start-up and gave them significant responsibilities. They began to interact on a daily, monthly, and quarterly basis with our board and with Vinnie and others. Vinnie obviously has known Aaron for years. The transition really began in earnest 5 or 6 years ago with that structure. Obviously, the Board has gotten to know Aaron over the years. He's presented at every Board meeting and is clearly a generationally talented young man when it comes to technology and building out large technology systems. He's been great with our clients and great with significant investors that have come into the firm and whatnot. Just a real amiable person that is well-liked and well-regarded around the firm. In terms of how that transition will work, the culture and the business purpose of Virtu will not change. Clearly, he's got a different, thankfully, personality than I do—maybe not as brash and outspoken, but certainly a lot smarter and careful about the word he uses. So I'm extremely excited for him and for the firm, as well as for his family and my family for everything that he has meant and will continue to mean to the firm. I'm going to ask Joe to say a few words from his perspective about the transition.

Joseph A. Molluso, Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer

Sure. Thank you. Now look, Ken, of course, Doug and I have worked together for many years, and we're naturally sorry to see him retire, but I've worked with Aaron and know him for many years as well and endorse completely his appointment as CEO. I know Brett and Steve, and I won't speak for them, but I think we're all in unison and in sync with this development. It's the best thing for Virtu at this point, and I very much look forward to the future.

Operator, Operator

We now turn to Craig Siegenthaler with Bank of America.

Craig William Siegenthaler, Analyst

Doug, we wanted to wish you the best in your retirement. And Aaron, we look forward to meeting you soon. Our first question is on the potential repeal of the Order Protection Rule. I'm wondering what do you see as the major impact on the ecosystem if this goes through, and more specifically to Virtu and the market makers?

Douglas A. Cifu, CEO

Yes. I mean, it's a great question. Obviously, we've been in the public debate, and we knew Atkins' position from, frankly, 2005. He's never been a fan of Rule 611. I think as a firm, we're sort of agnostic. Where I think this will probably shake out is similar to what you see up in Canada, which is that in order to have a protected quote, a venue has to have a certain market share. In Canada, it's like 2.5%, and I'm not suggesting that number. I think a reasonable number, a minimum market threshold, in order to be viewed as a protected quote, would answer some of the critics that talk about excessive fragmentation and lack of liquidity gathering on the displayed markets. I should note that I think we have 15 medallions these days and going to soon to 20. That may be a few too many. So from a liquidity-gathering efficiency perspective of the market, it probably makes some sense. We own an interest in the Members Exchange, which we think is a great exchange, and we continue to wish them well—that's a very significant investment for us. But we do think that, that makes sense. From a market-making perspective, the pros are that we spend a lot of time, money, and technology connecting to venues that frankly don't have significant market share. There's a cost to that. You will continue to have best execution, and we have always been a firm through technology and transparency that has demonstrated best execution to our clients and to the regulators. So we don't need the protections of the Order Protection Rule in order to do the right thing for the market. On balance, it's neutral to slightly positive for Virtu. It will probably lead to a reduction of overhead fixed costs related to connecting to these venues, and, to the extent there are inefficiencies and trade-throughs in the market, that's what market makers do. We keep markets in equilibrium and ensure that they are efficient, fair, and transparent.

Craig William Siegenthaler, Analyst

Just for my follow-up, I wanted to see if you had any thoughts on the strategic merits of operating a hedge fund in parallel to the Market Making and Execution businesses. The reason we're asking is that Tower is launching a hedge fund and then some of your other competitors like Citadel, Susquehanna, Two Sigma, they also run hedge funds side by side. So why doesn't Virtu launch a hedge fund? It could expand your revenue base. It shouldn't be dilutive to your stock valuation and also not require that much capital.

Douglas A. Cifu, CEO

Yes. It's a great question. I mean we have, over the years, considered it. There's a lot of infrastructure and conflict management that you need to deal with regarding a hedge fund. Certainly, those are all manageable. You do mention that firms like Citadel have managed them quite well, and I guess they had the hedge fund before they became a market maker. So it is certainly possible. This firm has always prided itself on being as risk-averse, if you will, as possible and capital-light, providing a service to the marketplace. In terms of holding positions, we measure things in nano, micro, and milliseconds here. Certainly, some of our strategies are longer than that. So just culturally, it might be a bit of a shift, but it is definitely something that I think Aaron, who's, as I said in response to Ken's question, is a heck of a lot smarter than I am and younger and more vivacious, will consider. Joe, any thoughts?

Joseph A. Molluso, Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer

No. Craig, we've looked at it as we've looked at everything. We've considered what that looks like side-by-side over the years. It's just been a matter of what do you prioritize. Here we sit today with a couple of thousand real buy-side clients as well as the Market Making business. It's something that's on the table that we revisit from time to time.

Operator, Operator

We now turn to Alex Blostein with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Alexander Blostein, Analyst

Doug, just to again echo everybody else's comments, congratulations. It's definitely a bit of an end of an era. We'll miss your passion on these earnings calls, but I'm sure the content will remain quite rich. So it's been great working with you. Question maybe strategically, and I'm not sure if that's better for the next call when Aaron is on. Just thinking through the M&A opportunities for Virtu. The reason I ask is the balance sheet continues to get stronger and stronger. The leverage ratios keep coming down. You guys have done successful deals in the past. With the way the ecosystem is evolving, particularly around crypto, are there things that might be interesting that could accelerate your growth? Where does M&A stack up on your priority list right now?

Joseph A. Molluso, Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer

Alex, it's Joe. I'll address that. You have to look at cycles and how they develop. There was a time when if you look at the acquisitions we've made, I think we're very astute in our timing and effectively bought volatility at low points. In the instances of ITG and Knight Capital, they were different, but had common themes around technology, leverage, and timing. In the past 5 years, we look, and our Board expects us to look at every opportunity that's out there, measure it against our internal opportunities, and against buying back our own stock. I think in the past 5 years, we've effectively only made one acquisition, which is the $1.4 billion acquisition of about 20% of our own company at $26 a share. That was probably the most accretive and shareholder value-creating allocation of capital we could have deployed. What does that mean for the future? I think maybe there's a premise to your question, which is that things may be changing, and there may be opportunities where the deployment of capital to an acquisition beats buying back our own stock. We're open to it and continue to look at everything. We won't rule it out.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from Patrick Moley with Piper Sandler.

Patrick Malcolm Moley, Analyst

And Doug, congrats on your retirement, and I look forward to working with Aaron as well. First off, Doug, you spoke about it in your prepared remarks, but with the recent passage of the GENIUS Act, what sort of new opportunities do you think a proliferation of stablecoin adoption would open up for Virtu? Just in terms of the overall crypto opportunity, where do you think you are in your journey? Is there more that you can be doing, or are you sort of watching the ecosystem evolve and picking your spots there? Any color would be great.

Douglas A. Cifu, CEO

Yes. Thank you very much for your kind words, and it's a really good question. I couldn't be more excited about the tailwinds within the digital asset space. I think stablecoins provide for more adoption of digital assets and more need for providers like Virtu to offer that on-off ramp. The analogy I used yesterday with our Board was to think of the ADR market, where we're super good at providing a service—someone will need to harmonize and handle the on-off ramp between fiat and stablecoin and stablecoin and fiat. There will be variants of that. No firm is better than Virtu to handle that type of transaction, so I think there are going to be a lot of opportunities to facilitate those conversions between USD and Ethereum, USD and Solana, and vice versa. We strategically invested in a Virtu-style business where we can be a value-added participant between spot, ETF, futures, perpetuals, and any instrument, and let's be prepared to do that 24/7. We've made a strategic hire of a young man that will start on Monday to help facilitate and grow that business. We have the relationships already. There's nobody better than Joe about managing capital and risk. It's a business we are very excited about. Joe, any other color?

Joseph A. Molluso, Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer

No, I think that's it.

Patrick Malcolm Moley, Analyst

Okay. That's great. And then maybe just as a follow-up on the topic of tokenization. We heard Robinhood earlier this month announce they were going to launch tokenized equity trading for their customers in Europe. You spoke about it a little in your prepared remarks as well. But could you just elaborate on that opportunity and how you see the tokenization landscape evolving as it relates to equities? Is it going to make more sense in Europe? Do you think it makes sense in the U.S.? How do you think about that kind of evolving from here?

Douglas A. Cifu, CEO

Yes. What I would say is, again, I want to be a little careful what I say due to some of the regulatory implications of tokenization. Our great friends at Citadel sent a very, very thoughtful letter to the SEC about making sure we understand the rules of the road here. It shouldn't be the Wild West and replace a regulated environment that functions very well. But we believe there is something to this, likely not for U.S. persons. You're right; it is probably geared towards folks overseas that want access to U.S. markets. That relies on our core skills, much like the ETF issuers. Tokenized stocks are wrappers of existing underlying assets. We're quite good at understanding the mechanics of how that works of providing attractive two-sided liquidity and ultimately being one of the firms that can create and redeem. We can do that globally and now 24/7. If it engenders incremental interest in U.S. assets and equity assets in particular, that's a strong tailwind and positive. We're going to work hand-in-hand with our partners at Robinhood, Schwab, Fidelity, Webull, E*TRADE, and others to address this market. Vinnie taught me a long time ago that marketplaces are like pies. Our job is not necessarily to have a bigger slice of the pie but to maintain our slice and grow the pie overall. This is a pie-growing exercise, if you will. So it's a strong positive for the firm.

Operator, Operator

We now turn to Chris Allen with Citi.

Christopher John Allen, Analyst

Doug, congrats on the retirement. It's been a fun run with you. I wanted to ask a little bit about Execution Services. It's up really nice year-over-year, and we're continuing to see strong trends there. I was kind of a little bit surprised we didn't see better sequential growth just given the overall volume trends. Maybe give us some color just in terms of what's going on underneath there? What are the growth drivers moving forward?

Douglas A. Cifu, CEO

Yes. Again, it's been a labor of love. I give all the credit in the world to Steve Cavoli, who is just a fabulous leader. No one could have cobbled together really three franchises: the small legacy Virtu, the substantial Knight institutional business, and then this giant global franchise and product company we bought called ITG. Frankly, I underestimated how challenging that was going to be with 2,000 clients. The analogy I've always used is that we're trying to change the tires on the car as it's speeding down the highway at 60 miles an hour. We're demanding revenue while changing the underside of what clients were interacting with. We've built a first best-in-class offering that is truly cross-asset and cross-product. Our only advantage comes from excellence in transparency and performance. We don’t have a calendar balance sheet or prime or research, so we must be acute. In the knife fight of execution services, we have done that. Steve has emphasized cross-product selling, which has worked. We have emphasized cross-asset development. We've developed a cross-asset EMS product that global asset managers are now looking at for credit, rates, options, and equities. We're not losing those jump balls to firms that had a cross-asset product; we're winning those jump balls. We’ve seen that the impact of orders and order sizes has dramatically improved in the last four or five years as we have integrated that offering with our market maker, and clients are extremely happy and responsive to that.

Christopher John Allen, Analyst

Just a quick follow-up. How are you thinking about the opportunity set or environment moving forward? Obviously, coming out of somewhat of a unique second quarter?

Douglas A. Cifu, CEO

Yes. I think, obviously, it's all about wallet market share, cross-selling, creating new products, Virtu technology services—broker in a box—going to sell-side firms with real institutional pressures to be excellent and save costs. It's a balancing act they have to handle. But at the end of the day, you're beholden to what the universe of the marketplace will give you. You'll have the ebbs and flows with global volumes, but the key is to grow that wallet and market share. Joe, any other thoughts?

Joseph A. Molluso, Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer

No, Chris. Just from a more macro standpoint, it was obviously an extraordinary environment. Some of the underpinnings are continuing but also creating variability. Still, the activity around Liberation Day coming out of that time was unique.

Operator, Operator

We now turn to Dan Fannon with Jefferies.

Daniel Thomas Fannon, Analyst

Congrats, Doug, on your retirement. You will certainly be missed on these calls. I was hoping you could just talk a bit about overnight trading. That's been a growing part of the market, but I'm really not sure how big of a contributor that is for you and how to think about that opportunity. So hoping you could put a little more context around that.

Douglas A. Cifu, CEO

Yes. It's a great question. Thank you for the kind words. I think it's very early days. We were a pioneer. I distinctly remember, oh gosh, maybe it was 2018, when my friend Steve Quirk, then at TD Ameritrade, said, 'We want to trade 24 hours, and we want you guys to do it for us.' People in the firm kind of looked around, and we were like, 'Okay,' because that's what you do when you're in the client business. We figured it out in a Virtuian way. We were the first firm to provide that service. I know other firms do now, and we're working with Blue Ocean and others. It's something our clients think is significant. Obviously, crypto ties into that because it's a global asset class, and you're seeing the ES become more of a retail product, which is kind of 24 hours, and maybe that will become seven days a week. Over the next 6, 12, 18, or 36 months, I believe you'll continue to see market share and a need for trading skill and liquidity provision. Frankly, not every firm can or will be able to do that. It's not that easy. We're truly a global firm. We don't have pockets of traders. Thanks to Aaron Simons, we handle the book very well. We've managed expenses effectively, so I believe ultimately, investors will find it hard to ignore. Right now, I would say it's probably 99% retail-driven, but I could see a moment where more liquidity comes from institutional investors. This is the Virtu model—we want to be at the center of it, and it is definitely a tailwind. Whether it reaches 5% of the market in two years or takes longer, I don't know, but it is a great incremental revenue opportunity for the firm.

Daniel Thomas Fannon, Analyst

Got it. Just as a follow-up, Doug, as you take a step back, I was hoping to get a little perspective on what you think will be the biggest contributor to your organic growth initiatives in three years' time.

Joseph A. Molluso, Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer

It’s hard to say. I would expect our ETF block franchise to continue having a stellar year. Options is also a big opportunity, right? You see a convergence among some of those opportunities as end markets grow, as overnight trading grows, and the scope of what we do expands. If you push me, I'd say crypto and options, but the ETF block franchise has been performing remarkably well.

Operator, Operator

Our final question today comes from Michael Cyprys with Morgan Stanley.

Michael J. Cyprys, Analyst

And Doug, congratulations on your retirement. I would like to dig in a little further on the overnight trading opportunity. It sounds interesting. I was hoping you could elaborate on your views around the institutional use case: how you see that, what it takes for liquidity to build in that overnight session, and how you see that evolving. I understand retail is driving a meaningful portion of the overnight activity today, but just curious if you could help quantify what you're seeing in terms of that retail activity during the overnight session.

Douglas A. Cifu, CEO

Yes. Yes, it's a great question. As I indicated, it's 99.9% retail today. There are a couple of issues: Institutional investors will trade in significantly more size; it's hard to go to a party and be the only person there. You need a dance partner. Obviously, we provide the liquidity, but they don't want to just trade with one or two market makers. So you need some forces to encourage institutions to do that. I think you're going to need more regularization; in other words, you need demonstrable levels of best execution that fit the parameters of the institutions sending orders there. I see it first being a risk mitigant—if there's going to be news, for instance—they might want to put on a hedge, doing that in the aftermarket because they're hedging a portfolio or an outtrade. That may eventually lead to a more electronic all-to-all marketplace. More broadly, it'll be challenging to ignore that liquidity ultimately builds there for institutions to use as a way to manage risk. With the right conditions, it seems inevitable it will happen. Whether that occurs in 6, 12, 18, or 36 months is impossible to know, but it's a real use case and opportunity for this firm to provide that unique liquidity.

Michael J. Cyprys, Analyst

Great. As a follow-up question, I wanted to dig in a little further on the tokenized U.S. equity trading for overseas clients. We're seeing some firms already announce and launch this. Just curious how you see that ramping up and about the volumes you are seeing from these platforms that have brought this to market. What challenges do you see in developing this market overseas concerning liquidity back in the U.S. markets, particularly if there's no SIP or market data repository for capturing this data? I'm curious how you see all of that developing and what risks are involved, as well as the opportunities?

Douglas A. Cifu, CEO

Yes. Great question. The most important thing is that the firms doing this, like Robinhood, Fidelity, Schwab, etc., care, and we will manage expectations and best execution for their clients. They'll still route this flow, whether tokenized or not, to market makers where they receive the best execution. You will see a competitive ecosystem where non-U.S. persons want access to the market, and the simplicity of tokenization is attractive. I view this as an opportunity to expand the pie for non-U.S. persons; it fits into our wheelhouse. It’s about providing liquidity for the switches needed in the market. We know the marketplace well, have established relationships, and our track record in providing best execution statistics makes us well-positioned to grow this offering. It's very early days, and firms are excited; it's a potential way to expand their outside U.S. footprint within the largest capital market in the world. As trusted business partners, it's an opportunity for us to grow our revenue base.

Operator, Operator

We have no further questions. So I'll now hand back to the management team for any final remarks.

Douglas A. Cifu, CEO

Thank you, everybody, very much for participating today and for the last 10 years on these calls. I greatly appreciate everyone putting in the work and effort in asking mostly really interesting, great questions that have forced me to think and respond. Thank you for being gracious to the firm I truly love. I'm excited to listen to Aaron, Joe, and Cindy on the next earnings call. I'll probably be on a golf course somewhere, but I will listen very, very closely. Thank you all for your interest in Virtu, and have a wonderful day.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, today's call has now concluded. We'd like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.