It is most likely related to Archaeplastida which includes plants and many algae, within the larger group Diaphoretickes.

[2] Other characteristic features of cryptophyte mtDNAs include large syntenic clusters resembling α-proteobacterial operons that encode bacteria-like rRNAs, tRNAs, and ribosomal protein genes.

Additionally, they are an evolutionarily significant lineage found in mostly marine, glacial and freshwater environments.

[4] For example, in 2016, a broad phylogenomic study found that cryptists fall within the group Archaeplastida, while haptophytes are closely related to the SAR supergroup.

[5][6] Based on studies done by Cavalier-Smith, Chao & Lewis 2015[7][8] [10] [11] Takaramoto, S., Fainsod, S., Nagata, T., Rozenberg, A., Béjà, O., & Inoue, K., S (2024), The roles of an extended N-terminal region and ETD motif in a pump-like cation channelrhodopsin discovered in a lake microbiome., Journal of Molecular Biology{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) This Cryptista-related article is a stub.