Wintermute plans $1 billion AI push beyond crypto: Bloomberg
Get the Finance newsletter
Daily finance — markets, central banks, M&A, the prints that move money. Free.
- Wintermute plans a roughly $1 billion, five-year investment in high-frequency trading and AI data-center infrastructure to expand beyond crypto into stocks, commodities, and foreign exchange.
- Wintermute targets non-crypto markets at more than 50% of revenue by the end of 2027, up from 10% currently, funded by retained earnings, per founder and CEO Evgeny Gaevoy in a Bloomberg interview.
- Wintermute's average daily crypto trading volume fell to about $10 billion this year from $15 billion in 2025, with bitcoin down to roughly half its October peak above $126,000.
- Institutions accounted for a record 72% of spot trading volume on Wintermute's over-the-counter desk in the first half of 2026.
- Wintermute's U.S. affiliate secured broker-dealer status last week, enabling it to trade stocks and stock options and act as an authorized participant for exchange-traded funds.
- Competitors Jane Street, Citadel Securities, and XTX Markets are pursuing comparable AI infrastructure builds — XTX committed roughly $1.15 billion to five Finland data centers, and Jane Street is preparing its own facility.
Why it matters: Wintermute is committing $1 billion of retained earnings to match the infrastructure playbook of XTX Markets and Jane Street, which committed comparable sums to data centers. With broker-dealer status secured last week and institutions already driving a record 72% of OTC volume, the pivot assumes crypto-native plumbing can capture more than half of revenue from traditional markets by 2027.
Ask SkimNews
