
The Crypto Conversation · 2026-06-22 · 27 min
Ilies Larbi is the founder and CEO of Ouinex, a multi-asset trading platform built to fuse crypto and traditional markets in a single account while shielding retail traders from the structural disadvantages of conventional order books. A nearly fifteen-year veteran of New York-based forex broker FXCM, where he climbed from sales associate to Managing Director for Europe and a seat on the executive committee, the Paris-based Larbi stepped into crypto in 2022 - late by bull-run standards, as he admits, but with a clear view of the gap he wanted to fill. Why you should listen Larbi's central argument lands with a memorable image: most crypto exchanges drop retail traders into a tank full of sharks. His culprit is the central limit order book, which works beautifully in regulated venues like the NYSE where institutions compete against each other, but breaks down in crypto, where a trader tapping orders from their phone over café Wi-Fi sits on the same book as a high-frequency desk running millions in low-latency infrastructure around the clock. That asymmetry, he argues, is why retail traders so often see stop losses picked off and price action that feels suspiciously erratic.