Wintermute's US arm has registered as a broker-dealer with FINRA, the industry's self-regulator, clearing the crypto market maker to trade stocks on American exchanges. The company has already signed exchange-traded fund issuers as clients, according to the Wall Street Journal, and CEO Evgeny Gaevoy wants to challenge the likes of Jump Trading, Jane Street, and Citadel Securities within three to five years.
From crypto to the NYSE
Wintermute has been quoting prices across more than 60 venues, but without a broker-dealer license it couldn't participate in the creation and redemption of ETFs. That changes now. The firm plans to start with commodities and digital asset ETFs, then move to tokenized equities, and eventually seek designated market maker status on a major exchange.
That final step is a big one. Only three firms hold DMM status on the NYSE today: Citadel Securities, Virtu Americas, and GTS Securities. A DMM must carry at least $75 million in capital before taking on inventory risk.
The ETF opportunity
No crypto company currently sits among the authorized participants for BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust. That list includes Jane Street, Citadel Securities, Virtu Americas, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan. Wintermute's registration could open the door to a crypto-native firm handling ETF flows.
Institutional interest is already there. Wintermute's flow data shows institutions drove 72% of its spot OTC volume in the first half of 2026, up from 59% a year earlier.
Regulatory groundwork
Wintermute has been prepping for this for a while. It opened a New York headquarters in May 2025 and hired Ron Hammond, formerly of the Blockchain Association, to lead policy. In September 2025, the firm told the SEC's Crypto Task Force that broker-dealers should be free to trade tokenized securities for their own account and hold them in wallet software.
The regulatory ground is shifting. The SEC cleared a tokenized share trading rule from Nasdaq in March 2026, and NYSE owner ICE backed a tokenized equities venture with OKX in June. FINRA oversaw 3,184 broker-dealers at the end of 2025, down from 3,394 in 2021, and the agency has 180 days to act once a membership application is complete.
Gaevoy's ambition is clear, but the competition is fierce. Citadel Securities alone holds DMM status for over 1,900 NYSE listings, about 62% of the exchange, and was chosen for more than 80% of NYSE IPOs. Wintermute's next test is turning its client list into actual market-making flows on American exchanges, starting with digital asset ETFs. Whether it can climb the ladder to a DMM slot will depend on execution and the broader appetite for tokenized equities.
