Across 2025, crypto market liquidity increasingly resembled a more mature, regulated system rather than a patchwork of disconnected venues.Across 2025, crypto market liquidity increasingly resembled a more mature, regulated system rather than a patchwork of disconnected venues.

Biggest Crypto Market Makers: List of 5 Leading Companies

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Across 2025, crypto market liquidity increasingly resembled a more mature, regulated system rather than a patchwork of disconnected venues.

One of the clearest signals was the stronger role of institutional-grade rails in shaping marginal liquidity. Kaiko observed Bitcoin (BTC) depth staying resilient alongside a rising share of U.S. crypto exchanges (around 58%, a 2-year high), increasingly concentrated among major platforms like Coinbase. In parallel, regulated crypto derivatives markets kept gaining relevance: CME’s recurring liquidity reports demonstrate a record activity around futures on cryptocurrencies, reinforcing a new reality where institutional risk transfer is now a central liquidity driver.

This shift aligns with a broader derivatives-led structure. Data from CCData showed that derivatives now comprise the majority of activity on centralized crypto exchanges (around 77.8% in June 2025). This implies that liquidity and price discovery in crypto are increasingly influenced by futures and perpetuals rather than spot markets alone. 

At the same time, stablecoins continued to function as the market’s liquidity plumbing. Kaiko noted stablecoin supply rising by about 33% since late 2024 to above $230 billion, while the recent research from Bank for International Settlements (BIS) frames stablecoins as a channel tied to wider financial conditions rather than a purely internal crypto metric.

However, it also seems that 2025 again showed that liquidity can still evaporate in risk-off moments: Kaiko documents sharp spread widening around major events, and late-2025 coverage tied instability to mass liquidations in crypto perpetuals, underscoring how a derivatives-heavy crypto market can both deepen liquidity in normal conditions but amplify moves when positioning is crowded.

Taken together, these trends suggest a market that is both more established and more demanding. This is precisely where crypto market makers become a crucial part of this “crypto landscape puzzle”. Acting as the primary “architects” of market depth, managing inventory across both CEXs and DEXs, hedging through crypto derivatives, and keeping tight spreads in response to volatility, crypto market making firms largely determine whether liquidity remains durable or vanishes at the moments that matter most.

The Growing Role of Crypto Market Makers

Crypto market makers have been one of the key “behind-the-scenes” forces in the crypto market’s maturation process. But what they really do, and is it true that they manipulate prices for their own benefit?

In practice, a genuine crypto market maker provides continuous bid and ask orders while aiming to remain market-neutral: its business model is not about betting on a token’s direction, but about supplying liquidity and facilitating efficient execution. By keeping two-sided quotes and consistent depth, they help traders fill orders faster with less slippage, including larger trades that might otherwise move the market. 

Thus, crypto market makers benefit from organic trading activity rather than price volatility. In addition, the increasing crypto regulation across the globe also brings more oversight of crypto market making services.

With more institutions in place, trading of cryptocurrencies has also become more professional and competitive, requiring exquisite skills and expertise from any crypto market making company in trading and risk management.

Summing up, here is how crypto market makers impact different market participants:

  • On crypto exchanges (both CEXs and DEXs), crypto market makers keep deep order books and tight spreads for cryptocurrencies traded there, making prices harder to distort, supporting public trust and higher trading activity.
  • For blockchain projects issuing a new token, crypto market makers help trade these digital assets smoothly by ensuring order book depth, reducing chaotic gaps and early volatility, and making prices even across venues.
  • Retail traders also benefit, because crypto market makers reduce slippage and widen the range of order sizes that can be executed without moving prices too much, resulting in less trading costs.

Major Crypto Market Makers of 2025

As of 2025, there are a few dozens of crypto market making firms, with a handful of them being the biggest players:

1. DWF Labs is one of the largest and most visible crypto market makers globally. Beyond active spot and derivatives trading across more than 60 major exchanges, the firm combines market making with venture capital and ecosystem support. DWF Labs manages a broad portfolio of over 1000 blockchain projects spanning DeFi, Web3 infrastructure, DePIN, AI agents, gaming, and memecoins, supported by thematic investment vehicles such as its AI Agent Fund and Liquid Fund.

2. Wintermute is a leading algorithmic market maker active across both CEXs and DEXs. It focuses on automated liquidity provision at scale while also investing in emerging protocols, positioning itself at the intersection of trading and ecosystem growth.

3. GSR Markets is among the earliest institutional players in market making of digital assets. Known for its quantitative and risk-focused approach, GSR provides algorithmic trading, structured products, and liquidity solutions for exchanges, token issuers, and institutions. Its role often centers on helping projects build sustainable, long-term liquidity rather than short-term volume spikes.

4. Cumberland, a subsidiary of Chicago-based trading firm DRW, applies institutional-grade quantitative strategies to crypto markets. Known for bilateral liquidity provision and OTC-style execution, Cumberland plays a major role in executing large trades across major digital assets.

5. Jump Crypto, backed by proprietary trading firm Jump Trading, brings skills from traditional finance into digital assets. Alongside liquidity provisioning and investments, Jump is notable for its active role in building Web3 infrastructure, and contributing to blockchain tooling and DeFi ecosystems.

Conclusion

In this article, we covered how in 2025, crypto liquidity matured into a more institutional, derivatives-driven landscape, yet remained fragile during risk-off shocks. This new environment elevates the importance of crypto market makers, whose ability to maintain depth, stabilize execution, and support both exchanges and token issuers now defines overall market resilience. 

Crypto market making firms like DWF Labs, Wintermute, GSR, Cumberland, and Jump Crypto keep expanding their presence across CEXs, DEXs, and derivatives markets, becoming central to how liquidity is created, sustained, and protected across the digital asset ecosystem.

*This article was paid for. Cryptonomist did not write the article or test the platform.

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