DWF Labs Partner Andrei Grachev: The Biggest Opportunities Are Often Underestimated
Andrei Grachev, Managing Partner at DWF Labs, posted that the biggest opportunities are often underestimated by most people. He suggests focusing on areas that many overlook, considering changes in the environment and world order, and envisioning one's future; he states that this is the working method of DWF Labs.
Grachev is currently the Managing Partner at DWF Labs, headquartered in Dubai, and leads the layout related to the synthetic dollar protocol Falcon Finance. The company claims to provide liquidity on over 60 exchanges, holds significant positions in mainstream digital assets, and has invested in or incubated over 1,000 industry companies. Its predecessor, Digital Wave Finance, was linked to a Swiss high-frequency trading team, and in 2018, when Grachev was CEO of Huobi Russia, he connected to this channel due to the need for trading volume.
The publicly described business components include: market making, over-the-counter trading (DWF Liquid Markets), venture capital (DWF Ventures), and secondary market investments. A common structure involves buying liquid tokens at a discount, locking up tokens, and then layering market-making agreements, or bundling investments with market making. The Block has reported on its inquiries to project parties asking how high they hope to push token prices, as well as using daily batch OTC trades to replace traditional one-time capital injections.
The company headquarters has shifted from nodes in Switzerland to Abu Dhabi/Dubai, emphasizing RWA and regional financial services. By November 2025, it plans to establish a DeFi fund with approximately $75 million in proprietary funds, targeting dark pool perpetuals, on-chain settlements, credit, and risk management, rather than incremental variants of existing protocols. Grachev has written for Forbes about "a thousand investments teaching you how to choose founders."
Controversies are also public: The Wall Street Journal reported that Binance's monitoring team had determined that DWF engaged in price manipulation of YGG and at least six other tokens in 2023, as well as over $300 million in wash trading, recommending a delisting; Binance's subsequent second investigation claimed insufficient evidence and dismissed the head of the monitoring team. DWF described the accusations as panic driven by competitors. Additionally, some project parties have reported that it promotes "artificial trading volume."
In terms of market mechanisms, what is bought are the token inventories and listing windows of overlooked tracks, while liquidity, narrative, and short-term price elasticity are sold. Funds roll from high-frequency trading profits into discounted tokens and market-making inventories, then flow into exchange order books and project treasuries. Beneficiaries are market makers who can simultaneously control inventory, market-making rights, and announcement rhythms; under pressure are project parties that misinterpret OTC sales as equity financing, and retail investors who buy into artificial depth. This is an event-driven self-positioning, not a new round of binding with a specific public chain.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Grachev did not enter crypto from a VC position but started from Huobi Russia needing volume and Swiss HFT needing rates. The exchange conditions in 2018 were very specific: exchanges offered low rates, and traders provided volume. This path determined that DWF later turned "investment" into tradable inventory—buying tokens at a discount, selling in batches, and tying market-making rights and announcement rights to the same table, rather than a long-term locked equity logic.
The capital path is trading profits feeding back into inventory, which in turn feeds back into the narrative. Proprietary funds come from high-frequency trading in spot and derivatives, then buying project treasury tokens at a 5%-15% discount, or using higher strike options to bet on price increases. The motivation is to act as a buyer, market maker, and announcement node simultaneously on small caps that others overlook. The strategy is not to bet on one correct future but to occupy both buy and sell sides in a window where "most have not priced it yet."
A comparable entity is Alameda before the FTX implosion: market making, OTC, venture capital, and exchange coordination layered within the same entity. The industry phase has shifted from the frenzied buying during the 2023 bear market vacuum (when DWF briefly became the most active "investor") into a control period under regulatory scrutiny and competitor monitoring. The UAE headquarters and RWA rhetoric aim to relocate the same inventory machinery to a more favorable jurisdiction rather than changing the business model.
Structural judgment pertains to the transfer of pricing power. What is being transferred is "what constitutes an investment." The mechanism is: when discounted tokens + market making + announcements can be completed on the same day, the project party sells future selling pressure, and the market maker buys short-term pricing power; what most consider an overlooked track is not overlooked for those who can provide depth and headlines simultaneously. The places that no one pays attention to are precisely where the biggest price differences exist for inventory holders.
ABAB News · Law of Cognition
Where no one pays attention is the market maker's spread factory.
Once an investment can be sold the same day, it is no longer an investment.
What is underestimated is not the track, but who holds both sides of the buy and sell.