what's wintermute?
Wintermute is a prominent algorithmic trading firm and market maker in the cryptocurrency industry, focused on providing liquidity and fostering efficient markets for digital assets. Founded in 2017, the firm operates as a high-frequency trading entity that engages in spot and derivatives trading across major exchanges, while also offering over-the-counter (OTC) services through its proprietary platform, NODE, which streamlines onboarding, execution, and settlement for institutional clients. Wintermute maintains a market-neutral trading strategy with minimal leverage and supports a diverse venture portfolio investing in early-stage crypto projects, though it has faced recent solvency rumors amid broader market volatility. The firm actively participates in DeFi governance, liquidity provision for new token launches, and regulatory preparations, including compliance with the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework. Key features include API-driven trading, real-time market insights via Wintermute Pulse reports, and an accelerator program called Construct to support crypto builders.
Wintermute purchased $532M BTC; also named Bitwise ETF trading counterparty.
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x.com/wintermute_tPurchased 7,188 BTC worth approximately $532 million in a 30-minute period ending April 13, 2026.
Added as a trading counterparty for Bitwise's Hyperliquid ETF S-1 second amendment filing alongside Flowdesk.
Provides loans on Wildcatfi that serve as the underlying isolated lending strategy for Eva Markets' evaUSDT product.
Purchased 8,919 BTC in a 30-minute period on April 10, 2026.
Bought 7,673 BTC worth approximately $362 million in a 30-minute period ending April 9, 2026.
Crypto options volumes on Wintermute's OTC desk doubled in 2025.
Launched the Yield Dashboard on NODE platform.
Facilitated the sale of 6.94 million DRIFT tokens worth $320,000 for FTX/Alameda on April 3, 2026.
Receives approximately 250 million in deposits to Wildcat protocol.
Sold 12,440 BTC within a 3-hour period ending around 2026-04-02 13:51 UTC.
Participates as an initial participant in SoFi's $20B business banking launch on Solana.
Suffered a $162.5M hack on September 20, 2022, when an attacker brute-forced the private key of a Profanity-generated admin wallet that retained contract privileges despite the CEO moving ETH off the wallet five days earlier, resulting in 109 drain transactions.
Received 7.93M ZRO ($15.3M) from Alameda Research.
Sold 12,440 BTC worth approximately $600M in a 30-minute period on 2026-03-27.
Launched 24/7 WTI crude oil CFDs on Wintermute Asia OTC desk with leveraged exposure, zero-fee execution, and fiat and crypto collateral.
Released crypto price targets based on status of Strait of Hormuz.
Collaborated with GMCI to develop the methodology for the NX8 product, a top 8 L1 index that rebalances quarterly with zero AUM fees.
Holds 0.32% of the token supply and reduced position by 0.97% net during the window.
Holds 0.32% of the total token supply as a known market maker.
Bought 7,188 BTC worth $450M on March 13, 2026, following the US-Iran ceasefire deal, as part of a coordinated $4.5B purchase across multiple exchanges and market makers.
Created an open-term WBTC lending market on WildcatFi with 200 WBTC borrowing capacity at 3.5% APR and a 24-hour withdrawal window.
Sold 12,440 BTC worth approximately $700 million as part of a coordinated sell-off across multiple entities totaling $3.5 billion within 30 minutes on March 8, 2026.
Sold 12,440 BTC within a three-hour period ending on March 6, 2026, as part of coordinated selling activity totaling $4.5 billion worth of Bitcoin across multiple entities.
Received approximately $3.9M in SOL from a wallet associated with ZachXBT following his withdrawal from a memecoin liquidity pool in January 2025.
Participated in Crossover Markets' $31 million Series B funding round led by Tradeweb Markets, which valued the ECN platform at approximately $200 million.
Retail investors are shifting from crypto to equities as volatility and access between the two markets converge.
Launched PropAMM on BNB Chain with Genius Terminal, offering 70% cheaper swaps.
Acquired 35,580 BTC on March 2, 2026.
Sold 3,521 BTC at $63,000 on Coinbase on February 28, 2026.
Received 325,000 UNI tokens (valued at approximately $1.24M) from a whale wallet on 2026-02-26.
Merges with Jane Street.
Accumulated 7,188 BTC worth approximately $255 million in a 30-minute period.
Accumulating millions of dollars in BTC on Binance on 2026-02-25.
Warns that AI hype and deglobalization are core drivers of crypto weakness, pointing to weakening institutional demand and macro regime shifts as structural headwinds that could keep prices suppressed through Q1 2026.
Participated in Based's $11.5 million Series A funding round led by Pantera Capital, alongside Coinbase Ventures, structured as equity with token warrants.
Launched OTC trading for tokenized gold PAXG and XAUt with 24/7 liquidity, targeting hedge funds.
Received 11.142 million ZRO tokens (valued at $21.5 million) from Alameda Research bankruptcy liquidation address on February 13th, 2026.
Serves as a crypto-native market maker for BlackRock's BUIDL token integration with Uniswap via UniswapX RFQ routing system.
Began market making for Rivian on 2025-12-20.
Received 12,458 stETH ($23.76M) and 2,566 ETH ($5.38M) from two wallets possibly linked to Konstantin Lomashuk on February 6, 2026.
Sold 6,172 BTC within a 30-minute period on February 5, 2026.
Branch Johnson joined as Managing Director.
Transferred 3,242 BTC on February 3rd, 2026.
Transferred 52,000 ETH on February 3rd, 2026.
Transferred 599,000 SOL on February 3rd, 2026.
Sold 3,771 BTC during low-liquidity hours as part of coordinated market activity on February 1, 2026.
Sold 3,410 BTC in the last 10 hours as of 2026-01-31.
Sold 4,785 BTC within a 30-minute period on January 30, 2026.
Liquidated over $250M in long positions on Binance within 15 minutes on January 29, 2026.
Liquidating millions of dollars in BTC and ETH holdings in continuous transactions following the Fed interest rate decision on January 28, 2026.
Hiring across London, New York, and Singapore for roles including Algorithmic Trader, Associate Financial Controller, Business Development & Partnerships Associate, C++ Quant Developer, and Trading Analyst.
Accumulates millions of dollars in BTC on Binance on January 23, 2026.
Sold 2,539 BTC on January 23, 2026.
Hiring a Business Development & Partnerships Manager for a full-time position in New York.
Facilitated OTC purchase of 50,013 ETH worth $148 million at an average price of $2,966 over a two-day period ending around January 23, 2026
Sold 4,191 BTC in a large transfer within one hour on 2026-01-19.
Sold 2,647 BTC during low liquidity hours on January 7th, 2026.
Pays more than $1 million per employee amid high-profit digital asset trading conditions.
Received a deposit of 288 BTC ($26.3M) from Bitcoin mining firm MARA on January 4, 2026.
Accumulated 4,811 BTC on January 3, 2026, representing approximately $500M in value as part of coordinated large-scale Bitcoin purchases by major entities.
Started bidding back tax loss positions.
Has invested in AAVE since 2022 and participates in its governance.
Bought 2,622 BTC in a 10-hour period on December 22, 2025.
Transferred 6,500 BTC in a single-hour period on December 19, 2025, as part of coordinated large-scale Bitcoin movements totaling over $2.5B across multiple exchanges and market makers.
Sold over $10 billion worth of Bitcoin on December 18, 2025.
Purchased 3,000 BTC on December 17, 2025.
Wintermute sold 1,526 BTC as part of simultaneous large-scale BTC sales from multiple exchanges (Binance, Coinbase, BitMEX) totaling over $2B within minutes.
Tessera is Wintermute's Prop AMM venue on Solana, designed for large institutional-size trades and listed among the main players in the Prop AMM space that dominates 40-60% of total Solana DEX volume.
Total on-chain holdings decline 31% to $377M by December 14th from $549M peak on November 22nd. Recent outflows include 77 BTC ($6.9M) to Bitstamp and 450 ETH ($1.4M) to Binance.
Wintermute receives $365 million in stablecoins, 2,671 BTC, 73.65k ETH, and 389k SOL over 24 hours on December 11th.
Wintermute transfers millions in ETH and BTC to Binance.
Wintermute receives $309.15 million in stablecoins from Bullish, Coinbase, and Circle on Solana before FOMC meeting.
Wintermute achieves $1.17M realized PnL over 7 days, topping the Smart Money profitability leaderboard.
Binance transfers 2,214.5 BTC, 43k ETH, and 112.9k SOL to Wintermute on December 8th.
Bullish sends $132 million to Wintermute on Solana on December 8th.
Sold 9,315 BTC on February 23, 2026, alongside Binance (5,460 BTC), Coinbase (8,375 BTC), Bitfinex (3,751 BTC), BlackRock (5,193 BTC), and Bitwise (5,010 BTC), totaling 6,131 BTC for $460 million.
$200 million USDC flows into Wintermute on Solana in 24 hours.
On Dec 5th, Wintermute receives 1,584 BTC, 53.86k ETH, and 263k SOL as the most active entity in 24-hour period.
Wintermute publicly advocates for exemptive relief for DeFi trading of tokenized equities in SEC Crypto Taskforce comment letter process, joining Robinhood, Coinbase, and Securitize in vocal support.
Wintermute receives massive USDC inflows from Coinbase, Circle, and Bullish in recent days to buy SOL for institutional investors.
Wintermute bought 4,707 BTC alongside coordinated purchases from whales (20,430 BTC), Binance (8,324 BTC), Coinbase (6,814 BTC), Strategy (3,887 BTC), Kraken (1,731 BTC), and Bitstamp (1,650 BTC) during BTC rally from 83K to 93K.
Wintermute bought 8,577 BTC as part of coordinated buying activity alongside Satoshi whales, Binance, Strategy, Coinbase, and BitMEX.
On Dec 2nd, Wintermute operates as the most active market maker with $525m in volume across 982 BTC, 50.5k ETH, and 441k SOL.
Wintermute sold 9,315 BTC alongside coordinated selling from Coinbase (8,375 BTC), Bitmex (7,993 BTC), Binance (5,460 BTC), Bitwise (5,010 BTC), and Bitfinex (3,751 BTC).
Wintermute sold 8,714 BTC today alongside other major entities including Fidelity, BlackRock, Coinbase, Binance, and Bybit in selling activity totaling over $5B worth of Bitcoin.
Wintermute among multiple recipients of $REZ token distributions from RenzoProtocol Investor Distribution contract in recent days, with SevenXVentures receiving the largest allocation of 83.57M $REZ (~$514.67K).
Staggering volumes transferred from Binance to Wintermute in the last 2 days, with suspected large $SOL supply exchange executed at $130-$140 range.
Wintermute closed one-third of their delta neutral position, with the tweet referencing $mon token bidding.
$133 million transfers from Binance to Wintermute in market making activity.
Wintermute buys Bitcoin alongside major institutions including BlackRock and major exchanges in buying activity totaling over $10B.
Wintermute officially denies being the major entity that experienced losses on October 10, contradicting previous unverified reports linking the company to the incident.
Unverified insider reports claim losses occurred on October 10 from autodeleveraging of automated market making vaults, with aggressive selling of spot holdings to cover these losses.
Wintermute sold its NVIDIA stock position.
Bullish exchange becomes highly active in market making through Wintermute; the exchange went public on NYSE in August 2025 with ticker BLSH, raising over $1.1 billion.
Wintermute sends 12.29M ENA (~$3.91M) to a whale address, who then withdraws 5.27M ENA (~$1.47M) from Binance and stakes the full amount into Ethena.
Wintermute submits second response to SEC Crypto Task Force, advocating for dealer self-custody for on-chain settlement and exemption of DeFi liquidity-provision from dealer registration requirements.
Arthur Hayes sends 520 ETH worth $1.66M to Wintermute and other market makers alongside ENA and ETHFI transfers.
Arthur Hayes deposits 2.62M ENA (~$733k) to Wintermute and Binance, and transfers 133k ETHFI to Wintermute.
A whale/institution purchases 19,945 ETH worth $63.82M at an average price of $3,200 through Wintermute, Coinbase, and FalconX.
Anchorage Digital receives 4,094 BTC ($405M) from multiple institutions including Wintermute, Coinbase, Cumberland, and Galaxy Digital over a 9-hour period.