Tag - Institutional Investors

Crypto market makers are firms, funds, or platforms that provide liquidity to exchanges. They buy and sell cryptocurrencies from individual traders, plugging gaps in the market and ensuring that prices remain as stable as possible. While they may not be very well known to retail investors, their numbers have grown in recent years, helping the cryptocurrency market mature and operate more efficiently. This article covers the best crypto market makers operating in 2024, explaining what makes each maker unique and valuable. It also covers their key features and target markets and provides pros and cons for each. Here's a quick rundown of the firms we'll feature: GSR Markets – Best for Cryptocurrency Miners Jump Trading – Best for High-Frequency Trading Bluesky Capital – Best for Personalisation and Customisation Kairon Labs – Best for EU-based Projects Alphatheta – Best for Token Listings Cumberland – Best for Big Institutions Acheron Trading – Best for Lower Fees Empirica – Best for Market Reach FalconX – Best for Boosting Market Depth Wintermute – Best for VC Funding and Incubation The 10+ Best Crypto Market Makers in 2024 GSR Markets Source: GSR Markets GSR Markets has been a leading crypto market maker since its founding in 2013. The London-based firm works primarily with cryptocurrency exchanges, projects, and miners. It offers exchanges a wide range of services, including 24-hour liquidity, presence data for order books, real-time key performance indicators, trading APIs and infrastructure, post-trade analysis, regular reporting, risk management strategies, and custom services. One advantage of GSR Markets is that it has developed its own proprietary trading platform, with which exchanges and projects can integrate in order to make their platforms more efficient. Its software can measure performance at the most basic and atomic level, enabling exchanges to gain a deeper understanding of their markets and customers. More generally, its services have a strong track record of improving market liquidity and order book depth for trading platforms while also softening big price moves and providing more efficient bid-ask spreads. GSR currently boasts around 65 exchange integrations, yet it also works with individual cryptocurrency projects and miners. Its services for tokens and projects include introducing teams to funds and investors, over-the-counter market services, consultations on tokenomics, and market analytics that help projects understand their positions within the market. Meanwhile, it provides miners with hedging services that can help protect the value of mined and held coins, treasury management, trade services, and yield improvement strategies. Pros Comprehensive and helpful services for cryptocurrency miners Highly efficient trading platform that works at a granular level Cons Pricing can be expensive for startups and projects in their early stages Jump Trading Source: Jump Trading Headquartered in Chicago, Jump Trading began as a quantitative trading firm focused on equities and other traditional assets. In recent years, it has branched out into crypto. This is most evident in the launch of Jump Crypto, which shows that the company brings its financial and technological expertise to virtual currency markets. As a crypto market maker, Jump Trading provides liquidity to exchanges in both spot and derivatives markets, working in swaps, options, futures, and leveraged trading. Its services for exchanges include smart order routing, real-time market-making algorithms, and API plugins. Such services are also offered to cryptocurrency issuers and projects, helping new coins establish themselves within the cryptocurrency ecosystem and find a market. This makes it one of the most comprehensive crypto market makers operating in the industry today. It is also a member of multiple stock exchanges internationally, including the New York Stock Exchange, the CME Group and the London Stock Exchange. In recent years it has moved away from the US cryptocurrency market in view of regulatory concerns, having severed its relationship with Robinhood in August 2023. However, it remains one of the biggest presences in crypto and arguably one of the first ports of call for any exchange or project looking for liquidity services. Pros Highly effective quantitative and high-frequency trading firm One of the longest-running market makers in crypto Cons No longer operates in the US Bluesky Capital Source: Bluesky Capital Bluesky Capital is a New York-based high-frequency and quantitative trading firm that has been a fixture of markets since its launch in 2014. It has expanded into serving as a crypto market maker, working with exchanges and projects alike. What distinguishes Bluesky from many of its peers is that it takes a very bespoke and custom approach to working with exchanges. It engages with its clients from the get-go, meeting and corresponding with exchanges to understand their particular needs and requirements and tailoring a market-making program based on their specifications. This includes pre-defining parameters and volumes for any given cryptocurrency pair while also specifying for how long they will provide 24-7 liquidity. With cryptocurrency projects, Bluesky works along similar lines. They work with issuers and teams to decide how much volume to provide and for how long, and which exchanges to target. The firm has a strong reputation for helping new tokens gain exchange listings while also helping new coins avoid price manipulation and attract new investors. Regardless of whether you’re an exchange or a project, Bluesky will use the same automated and sophisticated tools to support markets and coins. It offers advanced monitoring technology, responsive execution algorithms and also a robust approach to risk management, covering trading, technology, margin and counterparty risks. Pros Offers highly customizable and personalized services Strong presence within Wall Street and the US Cons Tends to prioritize American projects and teams Kairon Labs Source: Kairon Labs Founded in 2018, Kairon Labs is a dedicated crypto market maker that works with some of the biggest names in the sector. Its clients and partners include recognized centralized exchanges such as Binance, Bithumb, OKX, KuCoin, Gemini, UpBit, Coinbase Pro, and Kraken. It also works with a growing number of decentralized exchanges, including Uniswap, Quickswap, Spooky Swap, and PancakeSwap, making it one of the most comprehensive players in the space. Kairon Labs’ growth has been founded on its proprietary trading software, which integrates with centralized and decentralized exchanges to seamlessly provide liquidity. Its algorithms place and fulfill orders without lag, while it also boasts an advanced reporting and monitoring system that provides in-depth analysis, helping its clients to follow changes in the market. The firm’s services for projects include token launch support and advice, tokenomics and strategy guidance, and also exchange introductions. Its pricing structure varies according to the level of service provided, although Kairon prides itself on its competitive rates, it also aims to provide clients with a personalized service, adapting its services and trading strategies to each particular case. Another positive aspect is that Kairon has its legal headquarters in Belgium, meaning that it operates within and according to the regulations of the European Union. This provides strong reassurance for both exchanges and projects that it will conduct itself with the utmost integrity and transparency. Pros Proprietary trading algorithm provides greater efficiency and effectiveness than others Works with a wide range of exchanges and platforms Cons High-level of regulation may limit what it can offer certain newer projects AlphaTheta Source: AlphaTheta AlphaTheta is a crypto market maker with a strong international presence despite having launched only in the past few years. It offers one of the strongest suites of products in the sector, catering to exchanges and projects that are looking to list or hold their initial coin offerings. Not only does AlphaTheta offer its own in-house proprietary trading algorithms, but it also provides bots that can be deployed on numerous exchanges simultaneously and used to perform different support strategies for coins. This makes it one of the best market makers around for cryptocurrency projects. Its platform also provides around-the-clock monitoring and support, as well as the ability to customize strategies to the smallest details. It can integrate with trading platforms within days and help exchanges contact higher-quality projects. Liquidity is provided via AlphaTheta’s trading algorithms 24 hours a day, helping exchanges maintain a more organic market that will ultimately maintain customer loyalty. It also promises bid-ask spreads that are competitive with major exchanges, helping trading platforms grow their customer bases over time. One particularly good feature of AlphaTheta is that it specifically provides initial coin offering services. It helps to arrange the ideal timeframes and targets for a given token while also helping projects get listed on the best possible exchanges. It also helps projects quickly gain volume for their tokens, which can help with future listings and minimize arbitrage risks. Pros Offers advanced trading bots that can provide more effective coin support Highly successful in helping projects gain coin listings Cons Lacks the reach and network compared to more established market makers Cumberland Source: Cumberland A subsidiary of Chicago-based trading firm DRW, Cumberland launched in 2014 and specializes in providing spot-based liquidity to centralized and decentralized exchanges and projects looking to get off the ground. It also offers liquidity services related to derivatives, such as options, futures, and forward contracts, giving it an exhaustive and authoritative range. On the project side, it can help new cryptocurrencies gain institutional over-the-counter liquidity against dozens of major cryptocurrencies. It doesn’t require pre-funding on the part of new projects, while it provides access to relationship managers on a 24-7 basis, helping to ensure that projects stay on top of their coins’ markets. Cumberland has become such a fixture within the crypto space that its clients now include institutions such as Nomura and Goldman Sachs. It provides liquidity for the latter’s bitcoin derivatives service and Cboe Digital’s margin trading for BTC and ETH. Cumberland also has recently launched Cumberland Labs, a crypto-focused venture capital fund and incubator. This makes it a more holistic service than many other market makers, helping new platforms and projects not only gain liquidity for their tokens but also acquire the funding and resources they need to grow. Pros One of the best incubators and funding firms for crypto startups Works with some major institutions and exchanges Cons Slightly expensive to work with Acheron Trading Source: Acheron Trading Acheron Trading launched in 2018 and has quickly grown to support over 75 centralized exchanges and 20 decentralized exchanges, working on over 400 coin listings. This makes the Singapore-based firm one of the most experienced and competent in the industry, with Acheron working not only with exchanges and issuers but also with other crypto market makers. Its proprietary trading technology provides CEXes and DEXes with hedged liquidity, which can reduce slippage to a minimum and increase platforms' revenues from a higher volume of smaller spreads. The tech also uses algorithms that can automatically rebalance liquidity across multiple exchanges, thereby increasing capital efficiency and reducing arbitrage. Yet Acheron really shines in its solutions for projects, with the firm offering two main options for issuers looking to have their coins listed and supported. The first is principal market making, which does not impose a monthly fee or profit-sharing requirements on projects and involves a project supplying tokens under a loan and call-option model. The second is designated market making, which involves a project supplying tokens or cash equivalents and is available through a monthly fee and profit-share model. Another welcome feature is that Acheron supplies its clients with an informative and intuitive dashboard. This enables customers to monitor the progress of their coins, campaigns, or markets in real-time and helps them respond to changes accordingly. Pros User-friendly and highly informative dashboards and monitoring Lower cost than other firms with minimal fees Cons Slightly less experienced than some of the other market makers in the space Empirica Source: Empirica Having been building its own algorithmic trading engine since 2013, Empirica expanded into the cryptocurrency industry in 2017. Since then, it has served exchanges and Web3 projects alike. It now boasts recording hundreds of millions of USD in monthly volume while operating across 200+ markets and on more than 100 servers. This makes Empirica one of the most effective crypto market makers around. The firm uses its own price-stabilizing algorithms at the core of its liquidity services. On the project side, it helps tokens expand their volumes organically, ensuring that coins retain a healthy market depth and narrow spreads. By doing this, Empirica can assist projects in having their tokens listed on new exchanges, with the firm advising on which trading platforms would be best for particular coins and projects. The support Empirica offers is also of high quality, with the market maker providing full access to trading teams and advisors so that projects can discuss progress and any problems. It also reports regularly and enables clients to monitor the performance of their tokens. As of writing, Empirica has integrated its APIs with most of the major cryptocurrency exchanges. This includes Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, KuCoin, Gate.io, Crypto.com, and Bitfinex, as well as DEXes such as Uniswap, PancakeSwap, and SushiSwap. Pros Provides project access to the biggest exchanges and trading platforms Huge reach into a wide variety of markets Highly effective proprietary trading algorithms Cons Selective when it comes to picking projects to work with FalconX Source: FalconX As the only cryptocurrency swap dealer registered with the US Commodities and Futures Trading Commission, FalconX has one of the strongest reputations of any crypto market maker. It offers exchanges and institutions access to up to more than 400 tokens and has worked with over 600 institutions. Its total volume processed to date now exceeds $1 trillion. One of the reasons why FalconX works with so many institutions is that it provides possibly the deepest liquidity in the market, with the firm stating that its combined spot and derivatives liquidity is 40% greater than that of Binance. Also important is that its trading algorithms maintain a high fill rate and 99.99% uptime, making its platform one of the most reliable in crypto. FalconX provides liquidity for over-the-counter institutions and traders in addition to its exchange services. This OTC service provides highly personalized support and customized features, allowing users to access large block trading and consolidated access to multiple altcoins. The firm’s focus is primarily on exchanges, institutions and big traders, for which it offers a nearly exhaustive range of solutions. These include options outside of market making, such as the ability to trade derivatives and exchange-traded funds. It also offers loans and leveraged trading, with up to 5x leverage. Pros Extensive range of services beyond market-making Provides superior liquidity and market depth Cons Tailored more towards institutions and bigger clients Wintermute Source: Wintermute Wintermute, founded in 2017 and based in London, is both a crypto market maker and a strategic investor. It provides liquidity to exchanges and institutions and was most recently in the news as the provider for the recently approved Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs in Hong Kong. Besides, it also focuses heavily on providing market-making services on projects. Wintermute describes itself as long-term-oriented and doesn’t charge integration or monthly fees. It provides liquidity for new tokens across centralized and decentralized exchanges, as well as with pools. On top of this, it furnishes detailed in-depth statistics on tokens and their performance. They also have their own DeFi team that can help with technical details, such as bridging tokens from one chain to another. It’s entirely arguable that Wintermute is one of the top crypto market makers specifically for projects. The firm provides pretty much every kind of support and help a new token could need. It offers guidance on listing and liquidity and will work with teams on devising strategies suited to particular needs and circumstances. As a VC investor in the cryptocurrency space, Wintermute has funded well over 100 projects and startups since 2020. These include Aave, 1inch, Clearpool, dYdX, Bitpanda, Matter Labs, Arkham, Pyth, Optimism, and Vertex. This means that ambitious projects looking for overall support may do well to seek out Wintermute’s services. Pros Provides funding as well as liquidity to projects and startups Experienced in working with big partners Cons Fees are slightly higher than other firms How to Choose the Best Crypto Market Maker? Choosing a good crypto market maker hinges on matching your particular needs to the particular expertise and advantages of any given firm. Here are some things to watch out for - Token projects may benefit from looking for market makers that focus on supporting startups. Wintermute and Cumberland are two strong firms in this respect. Exchanges and institutions may prefer to seek out crypto market makers with proven track records of processing larger trading volumes and working with bigger clients. FalconX and GSR Markets are two excellent firms in this respect. Check for market makers that have registered and obtained licenses in recognized jurisdictions. This offers some guarantee of reliability and integrity. Look for market makers that have worked and partnered with recognized names. Again, this indicates that a market maker has experience and expertise. FAQs

Tag - Institutional Investors

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