Wintermute Wants to Expand Crypto Market Making Services to The US: Report

The leading cryptocurrency market maker, Wintermute, has revealed plans to expand its business to the United States amid the emergence of a more favorable environment for digital assets in the country.

Wintermute’s CEO Evgeny Gaevoy disclosed the company’s plans in an interview with Bloomberg at the ongoing Consensus crypto conference in Hong Kong. Gaevoy said Wintermute is looking to open an office in New York and offer new products to crypto users in the country.

Wintermute is Expanding to The U.S.

According to Gaevoy, Wintermute has added a new focus on the United States to its expansion plans going forward. To this effect, the company intends to increase its employee headcount by five or ten people – it currently has a team of 130.

The decision to expand its business to the United States comes shortly after Wintermute completed a funding round led by the Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings. In July 2024, word went around that Wintermute was in talks about raising between $100 million and $300 million – a deal that would increase its valuation to about $2 billion. However, sources familiar with the matter confirmed that the funding round was successful but failed to disclose how much was raised.

Notably, Wintermute previously raised $20 million in January 2021 in a Series B funding round led by the multi-stage venture capital firm Lightspeed Ventures, with participation from digital asset investment entities like Pantera Capital and Hack VC.

Regarding Wintermute’s expansion plans, Gaevoy expressed optimism about the advantages that could come from favorable regulatory changes in the United States. He mentioned that other countries are prone to follow similar developments.

Trump’s Crypto-friendly Regime

Since the crypto-friendly U.S. President Donald Trump assumed office in January, several companies that left the country or halted certain services have revealed plans to resume operations. The past few years saw the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), under the leadership of former chair Gary Gensler, regulate the crypto industry by enforcement, driving businesses and innovative products out of the country.

One entity affected by the SEC’s actions is the crypto exchange Kraken. The platform was fined $30 million in early 2023 for offering crypto staking services to U.S. customers. The SEC charged the exchange with offering unregistered securities, and Kraken agreed to pay the penalty and shut down the service without admitting or denying any wrongdoing.

On January 30, Kraken resumed crypto staking in the U.S., making the product available in 37 states and two territories.