What to know:
- Wintermute now provides two-way liquidity across major prediction market platforms.
- Prediction markets crossed $20B in monthly volume as institutional interest grows.
- Polymarket and Kalshi face rising scrutiny as Spain blocks access to both platforms.
Wintermute has entered prediction markets as event contracts draw heavy institutional attention. The crypto market maker is now providing continuous two-way liquidity on several major platforms. The move comes as monthly trading volume across the sector has passed $20 billion.
As per the announcement, the company has already started broadcasting buy and sell quotes on multiple venues. These markets include crypto results, macro data, elections, and others. Wintermute characterized the sector as being “in its early stages” when it comes to institutional investment.
Also Read: Paxos Settlement Secures SEC Approval to Operate as Regulated Clearing Platform
Wintermute Seeks Deeper Prediction Markets Liquidity
Wintermute already processes over $3.5 trillion in trading volume each year. It includes spot trading, derivatives, and DeFi markets. That infrastructure has been expanded with its new business line to event contracts, with price signals responding to varying expectations in digital and traditional themes.
Jake Ostrovskis, Wintermute’s head of OTC trading, said demand is already clear. Despite the recent increase in activity, he said liquidity is still inadequate. He says order books are shallower and spreads are wider than in major futures or options markets.
Wintermute intends to continuously quote both sides of the market. The deeper books could provide traders with more capacity at busier times, the firm said. It also stated that more narrow spreads would make implied probabilities more beneficial for institutions and larger trading desks.
Higher liquidity can lead to better signals from platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, Ostrovskis said. Those markets are frequently utilized to gauge expectations for elections, economic releases, and quick crypto moves. Wintermute would like those signals to resemble more like set-up derivatives data.
The move also reflects Wintermute Ventures’ broader view of tradable markets. The company has stated that the crypto rail can transform more events into financial instruments. That’s a view that sees prediction markets not just as speculative side venues with broader institutional usage but as financial tooling.
Prediction Markets Expand Beyond Early Trading Growth
Wintermute will be competing in an area where other large trading companies already operate. Event contracts have also been liquidated by Jump Trading and Galaxy Digital. Their presence shows that professional market makers are competing for a larger role in the sector.
According to data shared by CoinMarketCap, lifetime volume on both Polymarket and Kalshi has surpassed $150 billion. That number is for historical trading on both platforms. The same report indicates monthly turnover has slowed from its previous record rate.
Crypto-linked contracts remain a major source of activity. Large flows now are associated with short-term markets on both platforms that react to bitcoin and ether price moves. Five- to 15-minute up-or-down contracts on BTC and ETH account for more than half of crypto volume on those venues.
The regulatory pressure is increasing with the growth of trading. In Spain, internet service providers have recently been ordered to block prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi due to unlicensed gambling issues. The move placed Spain as the fifth country to implement limitations on the platforms in 2026 in a recent crypto investigation.
Also Read: Wintermute Launches Armitage DeFi Vault Platform for Institutions
Be the first to comment