USDWintermute Plans $1 Billion AI Buildout as It Expands Beyond Crypto
Infrastructure, hiring and U.S. broker-dealer status underpin a broader markets push
TL;DR
- Wintermute plans to invest about $1 billion over five years in high-frequency trading and AI data-center infrastructure.
- The firm wants non-crypto markets to generate more than half of revenue by the end of 2027.
- Wintermute is expanding into equities, commodities, foreign exchange and prediction markets as crypto trading activity declines.
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Wintermute plans to invest about $1 billion over five years in high-frequency trading technology and artificial-intelligence data-center infrastructure as the London-based crypto market maker expands beyond digital assets, according to Bloomberg. Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy said the firm is seeking a larger presence across equities, commodities, foreign exchange and prediction markets, with non-crypto activities targeted to generate more than half of company revenue by the end of 2027.
The strategy represents a sharp shift in Wintermute’s revenue mix. Non-crypto markets currently generate about 10% of revenue, while the planned infrastructure spending is expected to be financed with retained earnings. Wintermute intends to use the investment to train quantitative models on large volumes of market data and increase its computing, storage and networking capacity as it competes with established electronic trading firms in traditional financial markets.
Gaevoy said the scale of that competition requires substantial investment. “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,” he said. Gaevoy also said competing in traditional markets requires more than reducing execution times by microseconds, as Wintermute builds the broader technology infrastructure needed for quantitative trading outside crypto.
Crypto volumes decline as institutional trading grows
Wintermute’s diversification comes as activity in its core crypto business has weakened. Average daily trading volume has fallen to about $10 billion in 2026 from roughly $15 billion in 2025, according to Bloomberg. Bitcoin had also declined to roughly half of its October peak above $126,000. At the same time, institutional clients accounted for a record 72% of spot trading volume on Wintermute’s over-the-counter desk during the first half of 2026.
Gaevoy said the privately held company was profitable in 2025 and expects to remain profitable this year, without providing current earnings figures. For historical comparison, Forbes reported that Wintermute recorded $582 million in profit during the 2021 crypto bull market. The combination of lower overall crypto activity and a heavier institutional trading mix comes as the firm seeks to build revenue streams across a wider range of financial markets.
Wintermute’s planned investment would put its infrastructure spending closer to that of major traditional electronic trading firms including Jane Street, Citadel Securities and XTX Markets. XTX trades more than $250 billion per day and announced plans in 2025 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.
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Wintermute builds out traditional-market operations
Wintermute had already begun expanding outside its core crypto market-making business before announcing the infrastructure program. The firm started trading exchange-traded funds and perpetual futures linked to real-world assets in 2025 and added 24-hour exposure to West Texas Intermediate crude oil in March 2026. Those products extended its trading activity into instruments connected with traditional financial and commodity markets.
Prediction markets have become another part of the expansion. Wintermute opened a prediction-markets desk in early 2026 and expanded its role as a liquidity provider in May, adding automated two-sided trading for event contracts covering politics, economics, sports and other real-world events. The operation applies Wintermute’s market-making model to contracts whose outcomes are tied to events rather than digital-asset markets.
Wintermute has also strengthened its U.S. regulatory footing. Its U.S. affiliate secured broker-dealer status during the week before the August 12, 2026 report, allowing it to trade stocks and stock options and act as an authorized participant for exchange-traded funds. The registration gives the affiliate access to activities central to the firm’s broader expansion into U.S. traditional financial markets.
Hiring is set to accompany the technology and market expansion. Wintermute plans to grow its New York operation from its current 17 employees and increase its global workforce by about 40% next year. The expansion combines additional personnel with new trading businesses, regulatory permissions and computing infrastructure as the company works toward making non-crypto markets a majority source of revenue.
Other large crypto companies are also extending their operations into traditional financial products. Coinbase, Binance and Kraken have expanded into tokenized stocks and other products linked to traditional markets. Wintermute’s strategy centers more heavily on building high-frequency trading and AI infrastructure designed to support direct participation across equities, commodities, foreign exchange and other markets.
Crypto-related infrastructure businesses are also pursuing opportunities tied to artificial intelligence. Riot Platforms signed a 20-year lease with Anthropic covering 191 megawatts of data-center capacity at its Rockdale campus in a transaction worth about $9.1 billion. Riot’s agreement involves leasing data-center capacity, while Wintermute’s planned infrastructure spending is intended to support quantitative trading, computing, storage, networking and market-making operations.
This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.
