Trading & Options · Profile from Trading and Options Research Companion
Wintermute
A London crypto market maker — Wintermute Trading Ltd, incorporated on 25 Jul 2017 (Companies House 10882520) by Evgeny Gaevoy, who spent nearly a decade at Optiver running its European ETF business, with co-founders Harro Mantel and Yoann Turpin (MarketsWiki; The Block, Jan 2021). It quotes two-sided prices in spot, perpetuals and options on centralised exchanges, supplies liquidity to on-chain automated market makers, runs an OTC desk, and lends inventory to token issuers. Its UK group accounts are among the very few audited records of a crypto market maker's economics: net trading revenue of $818.5m and profit of $582.0m in 2021, a $127.5m loss in 2022, then $112.5m / $53.6m in 2023 and $295.1m / $154.7m in 2024 (group accounts, FRS 102, audited by Harris & Trotter LLP). It has also lived through the failures that define the business: 20m OP tokens lost through a wallet error (Jun 2022), a ~$160m hack of its DeFi vault on 20 Sep 2022 (S08 settled line), ~$59m stuck on FTX in Nov 2022 (Forbes via CryptoSlate, reported) and the 10–11 Oct 2025 liquidation cascade (~$19.1bn liquidated across the market in 24 hours, CoinGlass, a floor). Wintermute is British; it entered the US in 2025 with a New York office and in Aug 2026 registered Wintermute USA as an SEC/FINRA broker-dealer (The TRADE, 7 Aug 2026). For a trader, it is the clearest case of crypto market making as a business: a real liquidity edge, earned in bursts, exposed to venue, key and counterparty risks that traditional market makers rarely face.
At a glance
- Founded
- Wintermute Trading Ltd incorporated 25 Jul 2017, London (Companies House); Forbes (Dec 2022, via CryptoSlate) dates the business start to 2018 — trading began in the 2018 bear market (reported)
- Founders
- Evgeny Gaevoy (CEO; ex-Optiver, European ETF business — MarketsWiki); Harro Mantel; Yoann Turpin (led the Singapore build-out — MarketsWiki)
- Headquarters
- London (registered office 41 Lothbury, EC2R, from Dec 2025 — Companies House); Singapore hub; New York office from 2025
- Ownership / structure
- Private. Immediate and ultimate parent Convex Trading Limited (British Virgin Islands) per the 2024 accounts; Gaevoy a person with significant control (Companies House); Lightspeed reported ~15% and Gaevoy ~a third (Forbes via CryptoSlate, Dec 2022 — reported, verify current)
- Regulatory status
- UK FCA registration as a cryptoasset firm under the money-laundering regulations (accounts; MarketsWiki); Wintermute USA registered with the SEC and FINRA as a broker-dealer (The TRADE, 7 Aug 2026 — registration date given in secondary sources as 6 Aug 2026, verify)
- Business lines
- Algorithmic market making on centralised exchanges (spot, perpetuals, options); on-chain liquidity on DEXs and AMMs; OTC desk and the Wintermute Node electronic OTC platform (Apr 2022 — MarketsWiki) with spot, CFDs, options and swaps; token-issuer liquidity programmes; Wintermute Ventures
- Audited scale (UK group)
- Net trading revenue / profit after tax: 2020 $40.4m / $22.5m (restated); 2021 $818.5m / $582.0m; 2022 −$70.0m / −$127.5m; 2023 $112.5m / $53.6m; 2024 $295.1m / $154.7m. Net assets $563.1m (end-2021), $339.9m (2022), $293.5m (2023), $390.1m (2024). Average staff 12 (2020), 36 (2021), 67 (2022), 72 (2023), 82 (2024) (group accounts)
- Funding
- Seed (Jan 2020, Blockchain.com Ventures — reported); Series A $2.8m (Jul 2020, Lightspeed); Series B $20m (Jan 2021, Lightspeed and Pantera; Sino Global, Kenetic, Avon Ventures) (The Block, 20 Jan 2021; MarketsWiki)
- Signature moves (incl. failures)
- Founding and algorithmic market making (2017–20); Series B and the 2021 boom year; the Optimism OP token-loan loss (Jun 2022); the $160m DeFi vault hack (Sep 2022); FTX and the 2022 loss year; OTC Node, token-issuer deals and the Celsius suit (2022–24); US expansion and the broker-dealer (2025–26); the 10–11 Oct 2025 liquidation cascade
8 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2017
Founding and Algorithmic Market Making
Founding / new strategy, product or market
2021
Series B and the 2021 Boom Year
Capital raise / scaling into a boom
2022
DeFi Vault Hack
Loss and control failure; loss response
2022
FTX Collapse and the Loss Year
Counterparty or venue event; loss response; restructuring
2022
Optimism OP Token Loan Loss
Operational failure (counterparty and wallet error) within a token-issuer liquidity contract
2023
OTC Node Token Issuer Deals and the Celsius Suit
New product (OTC platform) / strategy pivot toward institutional flow; regulatory, enforcement or legal action (private class action)
2025
October Liquidation Cascade
Market shock / venue mechanics (liquidation and auto-deleveraging); loss response and reputation management
2025
US Expansion and Broker Dealer
New market / regulatory registration