What is Crypto Market Making?
Market-making strategies are often used to provide liquidity to digital assets that attract buyers and sellers to the crypto trading platforms or exchanges. The process starts with submitting both, the highest bid and lowest ask for a digital asset in a crypto market.
The market makers in crypto trading require to have deep experience in making investments, technical expertise, and a large financial backing. They can be institutional traders, a bank, trading firm, broker, brokerage house, or even individuals. Some crypto trading platforms also use market-making bots.
There’s a funny saying that Crypto “Market Makers” are actually “Money Makers”. In this guide, we’ll identify the top crypto market makers that have been crowdsourced and peer reviewed by founders of various blockchain and crypto companies.
How to Choose a Crypto Market Maker
Both new and existing projects with a publicly traded token should carefully due diligence the different crypto market makers available.
During bull markets, crypto market makers can profit upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Crypto market makers are actually great places to work with the starting salary at top tier funds ranging from $300K-$400K USD per year.
The most important thing to consider when choosing a crypto market maker is the structure of the relationship.
There are three different model types:
- Monthly Retainer – This is the most fair model. Why? You don’t lose a chunk of your tokens, you get to see the accounts that are trading, and you also get to see the trading activity. In most cases, the market maker does not trade against you, and you’re essentially trading with your community.
- Loan/Call Option – This is performance based model where a strike price is determined, and then for the next 6 to 12 months, the crypto market maker is bound to provide liquidity. At the end of the term, if the token is trading above the strike price, the market maker is in the money, if it’s below the strike price, the market maker typically gives the tokens back. The difference, or gap, is typically the profit.
- Investment – This model is where a crypto market maker invests in the project. It’s the least likely scenario.
Need help Choosing a Crypto Market Maker?
Schedule a crypto consulting call with our expert team of advisors at Crowd Insights.
Top Crypto Market Makers
GSR is a crypto market maker founded in 2013 by former Goldman Sachs executives Rich Rosenblum and Cristian Gil. Their trading partners include Binance, OKX, Bitstamp, Bitfinex, Kraken, and Coinbase. They have deep crypto market expertise and a strong track record in the industry.
Wintermute is a hyper-growth algorithmic trading firm and one of the largest players in the global digital asset markets. They provide liquidity algorithmically across most cryptocurrency exchanges and trading platforms, as well as support high profile blockchain projects and traditional financial institutions moving into crypto.
Jump Trading is committed to world class research. They empower exceptional talents in Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science to seek scientific boundaries, push through them, and apply cutting edge research to global financial markets.
Cumberland is a global leader in cryptoassets. They provide the access that counterparties need to capitalize on opportunities in the cryptoasset space, while working to ensure that the ecosystem continues to grow and evolve in a responsible, sustainable way.
Alphatheta is a team of expert traders, programmers, and analysts that are dedicated to producing premium fintech solutions in the cryptocurrency space.
They maintain a global operation with a presence in five countries, including two global financial centres; Singapore & Toronto.
Kairon Labs was officially founded near the end of 2018 as a dedicated algorithmic trading service. During the ICO boom in 2017 and the following retracement in 2018 they noticed a large need for liquidity provisioning and market making in this nascent market.
CLS Global is an all-in-one consulting company which combines Marketing/PR and Market Making services. With 5+ years’ experience, 350+ serviced clients, connections with TOP20 CEX, 60+ marketing campaigns and partnerships with TOP 10 launchpads and incubators, they know exactly what crypto projects need for an effective development and successful launch.
Enigma Securities is a leading, regulated cryptocurrency liquidity provider. They offer our clients bespoke liquidity solutions through the use of our proprietary trading platform and access to our APIs.
Enigma Securities is fully-owned by Makor Capital, an FCA-regulated brokerage firm with a ten-year track record of excellence. Leveraging technology infrastructure built to compete on Wall Street, Enigma has rapidly become one of the most competitive participants in the cryptocurrency market.
GotBit was founded in 2017, when BTC was just a $1000. They lived through the ICO boom, blockchain regulation and Binance launch. In the time since we went from two traders to a big company, spanning multiple branches of the crypto market: from market-making to startup incubation and consulting.
SIG is a global quantitative trading firm founded on a platform of intellectual curiosity. They bring together the brightest minds, cutting-edge technology, and expansive sets of data to solve incredibly challenging problems. They commit our own capital to trade financial products around the clock and around the globe, and they innovate by building virtually all of our own trading technology from scratch.
HRT is first and foremost a math and technology company. They are engineers and researchers working as one team to solve difficult problems, and trading millions of shares a day on the world’s financial markets.
Woorton is a regulated algorithmic trading desk enabling liquidity for the next wave of digital assets. Specialized in algorithmic trading and advanced technology, they thrive to provide the most efficient execution, making markets more fair and accessible for all. Woorton does not provide services to clients and trades on its own account only.
Amber Group is a leader in digital asset trading, products and infrastructure. They work with companies ranging from token issuers, banks and fintech firms, to sports teams, game developers, brands and creators. Operating at the center of markets, they provide liquidity across all major exchanges, applications, and networks. Across all products and categories, we have turned over $1T in volumes since inception.
DWF Labs is a Global digital asset market maker and multi-stage web3 investment firm. They are present in Singapore, Switzerland, the UAE, South Korea, BVI, and expanding. DWF Labs is part of the parent firm Digital Wave Finance (DWF), which consistently ranks among the top 5 trading entities by volume in the cryptocurrency world through its proprietary technology for high frequency trading.
Flowdesk is crypto market maker provides a trading infrastructure for market-making and other crypto-financial services. Based in France, Flowdesk’s flagship product is to provide liquidity fund management services to cryptocurrency issuers. The intention of the product is to fully align the interests between the market-maker and the token issuers as the strategy is defined by the issuer and executed by Flowdesk on its behalf.
Alameda Research is a Hong-Kong based private equity firm founded by Sam Bankman-Fried in October 2017 that offers full-service cryptocurrency trading and trades on every market and exchange, as well as engages in OTC trading. The firm provides liquidity in cryptocurrency and digital assets markets.
The market maker was involved in the FTX bankruptcy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do crypto market makers allow wash trading?
Most high quality crypto market makers do not allow wash trading.
How do I prevent a crypto market maker from pumping and dumping my token?
There are multiple ways to do this. In short, by choosing a high quality partner, aligning incentives, and structuring the deal so that it prevents bad actors from dumping, you create a more sustainable trading environment. Contact Crowd Insights’s team of crypto consultants to be your strategic advisors.
Why is my token pumping or crashing?
There can be a number of issues. The most common include a potential hacker trying to pump up your token, and then dumping it, or a group of individuals. A good crypto market maker will help you identify it.