Crypto Market Maker Wintermute Plans $1 Billion Investment in Traditional Markets Over Five Years
Crypto market maker Wintermute plans to invest approximately $1 billion in high-frequency trading systems and AI data center infrastructure over the next five years to enter traditional financial markets such as stocks, commodities, and foreign exchange.
Founder and CEO Evgeny Gaevoy stated that the company's goal is to increase the proportion of non-crypto business revenue from the current approximately 10% to over 50% by the end of 2027, with the investment fully supported by retained earnings. The current average daily trading volume has decreased from about $15 billion in 2025 to approximately $10 billion.
Wintermute's U.S. affiliate obtained a broker-dealer license last week, allowing it to trade stocks and stock options and act as an authorized participant for ETFs. The company plans to double its New York team next year and increase its global workforce by about 40%.
This investment will be used to train quantitative models, expand computing storage and network capacity, to compete with traditional giants like Jane Street, Citadel Securities, and XTX. The company has already begun trading ETFs and perpetual contracts linked to real assets and has launched a prediction market business.
On the market mechanism level, the decline in crypto trading volume is driving funds and resources to shift towards traditional asset market making, and the infrastructure investment will enhance cross-market liquidity supply capabilities. Beneficiaries will be crypto-native traders with AI and HFT capabilities, while those under pressure will be market makers relying on single crypto cycle revenues, with capital accelerating towards multi-asset platforms.
Source: Public Information
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Wintermute was founded in 2017, starting with crypto algorithmic market making, recording approximately $582 million in profits during the 2021 bull market, and has recently extended its business to ETFs, perpetual oil contracts, and prediction markets. The acquisition of a U.S. license marks its official entry into the stock market making sector.
In terms of capital strategy, the company will invest all high profits from crypto into AI data centers and HFT infrastructure, motivated by the need to hedge against the risk of declining crypto trading volumes. Strategically, it aims to replicate the multi-asset quantitative models of Jane Street and Citadel, reducing reliance on external cloud services by building its own computing power and accelerating model iteration.
Similar cases include XTX Markets planning to invest approximately $1.15 billion in a data center in Finland, and Jane Street building its own data center to support machine learning strategies. Currently, crypto market makers are in an expansion phase, transitioning from single assets to traditional financial infrastructure.
The structural judgment indicates a technological substitution: AI and self-built computing power are becoming core thresholds for cross-market making, where the ability to train on vast market data and execute with low latency determines pricing competitiveness, forcing crypto-native players to make large capital expenditures to gain access to and share in traditional markets.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
- Cycle lows spur cross-market ambitions
- Computing power is the market-making moat
- Retained earnings are more steadfast than external financing.