Digital assets market maker Wintermute Trading Ltd. plans to invest $1 billion over five years in high-frequency trading and AI data-center infrastructure to expand into traditional markets like equities, commodities, and foreign exchange. Led by CEO Evgeny Gaevoy, the firm aims to increase non-crypto revenue from 10% to over 50% by 2027. This pivot follows a decline in Wintermute's daily crypto trading volume to $10 billion in 2026, positioning it to compete with Wall Street giants like Jane Street and Citadel Securities.
Wintermute $1 billion infrastructure investment
- ▪Wintermute Trading Ltd. expects to fund its $1 billion infrastructure investment using retained earnings.
- ▪Wintermute Trading Ltd. plans to invest approximately $1 billion over five years in high-frequency trading and artificial intelligence data-center infrastructure.
- ▪Wintermute Trading Ltd. plans to use the new infrastructure to train quantitative models on large volumes of market data and increase its computing, storage, and networking capacity.
High-frequency trading expansion
- ▪Wintermute Trading Ltd. is expanding its trading operations into traditional asset classes including equities, commodities, and foreign exchange.
- ▪Wintermute Trading Ltd. began trading exchange-traded funds and perpetual futures tied to real-world assets in 2025, added 24-hour exposure to West Texas Intermediate crude in March 2026, and opened a prediction-markets desk in early 2026.
- ▪Wintermute Trading Ltd. plans to expand its New York workforce and increase its global headcount by approximately 40% in 2027.
Traditional markets revenue targets
- ▪Wintermute Trading Ltd. aims for non-crypto markets to generate more than 50% of its revenue by the end of 2027, up from 10% in August 2026.
- ▪Wintermute Trading Ltd. founder and CEO Evgeny Gaevoy stated that the privately held company was profitable in 2025 and expects to remain profitable in 2026.
Declining crypto trading volumes
- ▪Wintermute Trading Ltd.'s average daily crypto trading volume fell to approximately $10 billion in 2026 from $15 billion in 2025.
- ▪Institutional clients accounted for a record 72% of spot trading volume on Wintermute Trading Ltd.'s over-the-counter desk in the first half of 2026.
- ▪The decline in Wintermute Trading Ltd.'s crypto trading volume occurred alongside a drop in bitcoin's price to roughly half of its October peak above $126,000.
Competition with Wall Street firms
- ▪Wintermute Trading Ltd.'s investment is intended to help the firm compete with established traditional market makers such as Jane Street Group, Citadel Securities, and XTX Markets.
- ▪XTX Markets announced plans in 2025 to spend €1 billion, or about $1.15 billion, on five data centers in Finland, while Jane Street Group is also preparing to build and finance its own data center.
U.S. broker-dealer registration
- ▪Wintermute Trading Ltd.'s U.S. affiliate secured broker-dealer status in August 2026, allowing the entity to trade stocks and stock options.
- ▪The U.S. broker-dealer status secured by Wintermute Trading Ltd.'s affiliate in August 2026 allows the firm to act as an authorized participant for exchange-traded funds.
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