Wintermute’s US arm has registered as a broker-dealer and already signed exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuers as clients, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The registration clears Wintermute USA to register as a market maker on American stock exchanges. Chief Executive Evgeny Gaevoy said the firm wants to compete with Jump Trading, Jane Street and Citadel Securities within three to five years.
What the Wintermute Broker License Changes
One list frames the whole move. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust held $43.2 billion at the end of June. A dozen firms are cleared to create and redeem its shares, the job that keeps an ETF trading close to the value of what it holds.
Not one of them is a crypto company. The fund’s latest prospectus names Jane Street, Citadel Securities, Virtu Americas, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan among them.
That is the gap Wintermute is stepping into. It says it quotes prices across more than 60 venues, yet it could not touch the plumbing of crypto’s own flagship product. The job needs a broker-dealer license.
Now it has one. It also has customers waiting, according to the Journal.
Registration does not make Wintermute a Wall Street firm overnight. It makes it eligible.
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Wintermute Takes Aim at Jump, Jane Street and Citadel
Gaevoy gave himself three to five years to catch those three firms, the Journal reported.
The plan runs in stages. Wintermute starts with commodities and digital asset ETFs, the markets closest to what it already trades. Tokenized equities follow, if regulators allow them. Designated market maker status on a major exchange sits at the end.
Each stage needs a separate approval. None of them is automatic.
The numbers show how steep the climb is.
Three firms hold designated market maker status on the New York Stock Exchange, according to the exchange’s own model. They are Citadel Securities, Virtu Americas and GTS Securities.
Every listed stock gets exactly one. Citadel Securities holds that role for more than 1,900 of them, about 62% of NYSE listings, and issuers picked it for more than 80% of NYSE IPOs. A designated market maker must also carry at least $75 million in capital before inventory risk.
Wintermute’s case rests on who it already serves. Institutions drove 72% of its spot over-the-counter (OTC) volume in the first half of 2026, up from 59% a year earlier, according to Wintermute’s institutional flow data.
“At three quarters of volume, institutional flow defines market structure,” Wintermute, H1 2026 OTC flow report.
Those clients already buy equities, commodities and ETFs somewhere else.
The groundwork started early. The firm opened a New York headquarters in May 2025 and hired Ron Hammond, previously of the Blockchain Association, to lead policy work.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has 180 days to act once a membership application is complete. It oversaw 3,184 broker-dealers at the end of 2025, down from 3,394 in 2021.
Wintermute joins a shrinking club, not a crowded one.
Tokenized Stocks Remain the Bigger Prize
The tokenized equities stage carries the most weight.
That market is already forming. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) cleared a tokenized share trading rule from Nasdaq in March 2026. In June, NYSE owner Intercontinental Exchange backed a tokenized equities venture with OKX.
Wintermute had already made its case. In a September 2025 submission to the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, it argued broker-dealers should be free to trade tokenized securities for their own account and hold them in wallet software.
That was a lobbying position then. It is a licensed firm’s position now.
Two questions remain open. Which securities Wintermute quotes first, and whether any exchange grants it market maker status at all.
Registration buys the ticket. It does not hand over the seat.
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