Wintermute challenges Wall Street: billion-dollar investments in HFT and artificial intelligence
Wintermute, one of the leading algorithmic market makers in digital assets, has announced plans to invest about $1 billion over five years in developing high-frequency trading (HFT) systems and data centers for artificial intelligence tasks. This is an ambitious attempt to transform from a crypto player into a full-fledged trading organization capable of directly competing with traditional market giants such as Jane Street and Citadel Securities.
The company's founder and CEO, Evgeny Gaevoy, soberly assesses the current situation. Against the backdrop of a cooling crypto market, the average daily trading volume has declined from about $15 billion last year to $10 billion this year. This decline has become a catalyst for seeking new revenue sources and diversifying the business.
A pivot toward traditional finance
The move to traditional markets is not just a declaration of intent. The company's U.S. division has already registered with the SEC as a broker-dealer and joined FINRA, opening a direct path to trading equities and related instruments on U.S. exchanges.
Currently, trading in non-crypto assets accounts for only about 10% of the company's revenue. However, the strategic goal is to radically change this balance. Wintermute's management expects that by the end of 2027, traditional markets will generate more than 50% of all revenue.
To achieve this goal, the company plans to double its team in New York, where only 17 people currently work, and expand its global headcount by 40% over the next year. Notably, the entire $1 billion investment will be funded exclusively from its own profits. This fundamentally distinguishes Wintermute from many market participants who are accustomed to attracting external capital or increasing debt to expand.
Why high-frequency trading and artificial intelligence are needed
The bulk of the capital will be directed toward two key areas: building advanced HFT infrastructure and constructing data centers for training AI models. This is not just about hiring traders and obtaining regulatory licenses.
Wintermute already processes more than $3.5 trillion in annual trading volume across more than 70 venues. This scale generates colossal data sets that serve as ideal fuel for training artificial intelligence algorithms. The company is also actively expanding into adjacent areas of the crypto industry: it has entered prediction markets and enabled trading in tokenized gold, bridging crypto infrastructure with the real economy.
Wintermute's position was noticeably strengthened after the collapse of FTX in late 2022, when the company became one of the key liquidity providers during a period of extreme market stress. At peak moments, the company's daily trading volume reached $3–5 billion. It was then that its reputation as a reliable counterparty was cemented—at a time when the industry needed it most. Now the company is trying to transfer this invaluable experience beyond the crypto market.
My view: This is a landmark step that confirms the convergence of the crypto industry and traditional finance. Wintermute has a unique advantage—extensive experience working with volatility and liquidity in a 24/7 market environment, which many classic market makers lack. If they manage to effectively apply their algorithms on stock exchanges, it could seriously reshape the balance of power on Wall Street.