Wintermute Pivots Business Model As Crypto Bear Market Drags On

According to a Bloomberg interview with CEO Evgeny Gaevoy, Wintermute Trading Ltd. will deploy roughly $1 billion over the next five years into high-frequency trading (HFT) infrastructure and AI-focused data centers.

The crypto-native firm aims to take the fight directly to traditional stock, commodity, and foreign exchange giants.

Invading Wall Street's turf

Gaevoy noted that Wintermute is positioning itself to go toe-to-toe with TradFi heavyweights like Jane Street Group and Citadel Securities.

"We are now going up against firms that have spent decades optimizing their technology and infrastructure for these markets, so obviously the level of investment required is significant," Gaevoy stressed.

High-frequency trading relies on ultra-low latency algorithms and raw computing power to execute thousands of orders in fractions of a second, squeezing profits out of micro-second price gaps.

Wintermute plans to fund its massive infrastructure expansion purely out of retained earnings. The firm generated $582 million in profit during the 2021 bull run and remained profitable through 2025 and 2026, though management keeps exact figures close to the chest.

Volume slump forces the pivot

A prolonged crypto slump has chopped Bitcoin roughly in half from its October peak of over $126,000.

That contraction hit market liquidity hard, pulling Wintermute’s average daily trading volume down from $15 billion last year to $10 billion in 2026.

Right now, non-crypto markets account for just 10% of the firm's revenue. Leadership wants that number past 50% by the end of 2027.

The strategy shift gained momentum during a 2025 team retreat in Greece, spawning the internal battle cry "TradFi or die." Last year, the firm started trading TradFi ETFs and real-world asset (RWA) perpetuals, before launching a dedicated prediction markets desk in early 2026.

"There is a future where crypto takes over the world, and there is also a future where it's merging with TradFi one way or another," Gaevoy added.

Laying the groundwork for its US expansion, Wintermute’s local entity recently registered as a broker-dealer with US regulators. The firm currently operates with a 17-person team in New York, with plans to double its US footprint next year while expanding its global workforce by 40%.

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