Wintermute plans $1 billion AI push beyond crypto: Bloomberg
Wintermute plans a $1 billion investment over five years in high-frequency trading and AI infrastructure to expand beyond crypto.
The firm said it is aiming for non-crypto markets to drive over 50% of revenue by 2027, up from 10% currently, as it seeks to diversify its business.
The strategic pivot follows declining crypto activity, with daily trading volumes dropping to $10 billion this year from $15 billion in 2025. Crypto market maker Wintermute plans to invest about $1 billion in high-frequency trading and artificial intelligence data-center infrastructure over five years as it expands into stocks, commodities and foreign exchange.
The London-based firm wants non-crypto markets to generate more than 50% of revenue by the end of 2027, up from 10% now, according to a Bloomberg report citing founder and CEO Evgeny Gaevoy. Wintermute expects to fund the spending with retained earnings. The push follows a drop in crypto activity.
Wintermute’s average daily trading volume fell to about $10 billion this year from $15 billion in 2025 as bitcoin declined to roughly half its October peak above $126,000. Institutions accounted for a record 72% of spot trading volume on its over-the-counter desk in the first half of 2026.
Gaevoy said the privately held company was profitable in 2025 and expects to remain profitable this year, without providing figures. Wintermute recorded $582 million in profit during the 2021 crypto bull market, according to Forbes. The investment would help Wintermute compete with firms including Jane Street, Citadel Securities and XTX Markets.
XTX, which trades more than $250 billion a day, announced plans last year to spend €1 billion, or about $1.15 billion, on five data centers in Finland. Jane Street is also preparing to build and finance its own data center. Wintermute will use the infrastructure to train quantitative models on large volumes of market data and increase its computing, storage and networking capacity.
Gaevoy said competing in traditional markets requires more than reducing execution times by microseconds. The firm began trading exchange-traded funds and perpetual futures tied to real-world assets in 2025 and added 24-hour exposure to West Texas Intermediate crude in March. It also opened a prediction-markets desk in early 2026.
Wintermute’s U.S. affiliate secured broker-dealer status last week, allowing it to trade stocks and stock options and act as an authorized participant for exchange-traded funds. CoinDesk has reached out to Wintermute for comment. Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry.
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