BigTime has released an industry report titled “Crypto Market-Making Industry Map: GSR and Its Competitors,” laying out the operating backdrop, major firms and expansion paths across the crypto market-making business. The report covers industry structure and leading participants, with data current through Sept. 13, 2026, and says all information was compiled from public reporting. It also notes that market making remains an industry without public revenue disclosure, so any figures should be read with attention to methodology and timing.
Five data points frame the current environment
According to the report, trading volume has continued to decline from its peak in September 2025, confirming that the market has cooled. At the same time, the structure of the market is moving in two clear directions.
The first is derivatives. BigTime says a 9.6x trading ratio shows activity is concentrated on the derivatives side, which in turn has become the main arena for inventory management and hedging by market makers.
The second is institutional capital. The report points to ETF assets approaching $100 billion, a record stablecoin supply and institutional trading share reaching 72%. In BigTime’s reading, the market is no longer led by retail participation.
That combination matters. Volume is shrinking, while the client base is becoming more institutional. BigTime says market makers are adjusting their customer mix, service model and revenue sources to fit that shift.
Major firms are being judged on the same map
The report includes a side-by-side review of major market makers and their latest positioning, with information updated through Sept. 13, 2026. It warns that disclosures differ from company to company, and that many valuation figures cited in the market come from private fundraising reports or media-circulated rumors, making direct comparisons unreliable.
BigTime’s starting point is that any individual market maker should first be placed back into the broader industry context. The firm says crypto market making is a fast-changing business with little public financial disclosure, so public information often provides only an outline. Even so, mapping the main participants together can still show who is expanding after the drop in trading activity, where institutional capital is entering and what these companies are turning into.
Four lines of change in industry structure
BigTime groups the sector’s recent changes into four lines.
First, the cycle is removing participants. The report says the market crash in October 2025 triggered about $19 billion in liquidations in a single day, citing Decrypt on Oct. 17, 2025. It then points to a later claim that “30% of market makers were wiped out,” attributed to media reports citing Galaxy’s CEO in November 2025. Whatever the precise ratio, BigTime says the direction is clear: in a period of weak volume and tighter volatility, quoting obligations and inventory risk weigh more heavily on smaller firms, pushing the industry toward higher concentration.
Second, traditional financial institutions are using equity stakes to acquire crypto capabilities. The report says Standard Chartered’s SC Ventures took a stake in GSR and became its first outside strategic shareholder. It also says entities within the same banking group have relationships with B2C2 and FalconX, while Japan’s SBI holds B2C2. BigTime’s conclusion is that banks are not building crypto market-making operations themselves. They are buying into the space through ownership and alliances, and it describes that as one of the clearest industry themes of 2026.
Third, the IPO window has opened, but outcomes have split sharply. BigTime says FalconX filed for an IPO in May 2026. For comparison, it cites the 2025 listings of peers: Circle rose 168% on its first trading day, and Bullish gained 90%. But by July 2026, Gemini was down about 89% from its first-day level, while CoinShares fell 21.7% on its market debut in April 2026. The report’s takeaway is that a public listing for market-making and brokerage firms should not be treated as an automatic positive, and valuation ranges are more meaningful than a single headline number.
Fourth, leading firms are expanding in similar directions. The report says Wintermute obtained a U.S. broker-dealer license, GSR acquired a FINRA broker-dealer and launched an ETF, and major firms have been moving into tokenized assets.
Leading firms are broadening into crypto capital-markets platforms
On tokenized assets, the report compiles several public data points. A Bernstein estimate cited by The Block on June 22, 2026 put tokenized real-world assets, or RWAs, at about $51 billion, up 40% year over year. A separate estimate published by Forbes on July 2, 2026 put the figure closer to $60 billion, with roughly half lacking meaningful on-chain activity. Yellow reported on Sept. 13, 2026 that tokenized U.S. Treasuries had grown to more than $10 billion.
BigTime says market makers are already participating in that segment. The Block reported on Feb. 16, 2026 that Wintermute launched tokenized gold OTC trading and estimated that market at $15 billion in 2026. Spencer Hallarn, head of markets at GSR, said on The Desk podcast in September 2026 that RWA perpetual contracts already accounted for 63% of Hyperliquid trading volume.
From BigTime’s perspective, the top firms are no longer staying within pure market making. They are extending into what it describes as “crypto capital-markets platforms.” The report adds one caveat: the quality of that expansion should be judged by customer adoption and operating results, not by the number of announcements.
What to check when evaluating a market-making firm
The report lists four fixed checkpoints for analyzing companies in this sector.
- Quoting and risk management: whether the firm can maintain quotes when volatility rises, and how it manages inventory and hedging costs. BigTime says this is the hardest area for outsiders to observe and usually has to be inferred from behavior over time.
- Which legal entity holds which license: a license belongs to a specific legal entity and covers a specific scope of business, so it should not be stretched to represent the entire company.
- Capital relationships: who owns a stake and who controls the business, because that shapes both access to resources and incentive alignment. The report points to the capital relationship between GSR and Standard Chartered as an example.
- Customer mix and service depth: whether the firm serves one-off trading demand or recurring needs spanning issuance, trading and treasury.
How BigTime positions GSR
Within this industry map, BigTime places GSR in a representative position. It describes GSR as an established market maker that has filled in its cross-jurisdiction licensing setup, brought in a bank-backed shareholder and pushed its business toward ETFs and advisory work. In BigTime’s view, GSR is one sample of how the sector is moving from market making into institutional capital-markets services.
The report adds that a fuller breakdown of GSR itself is available in a separate study titled “GSR Deep Dive: Why Is a Market Maker Building a Crypto Capital Market?”
Risk notes and sourcing
BigTime says the report relies on third-party statistics and media coverage, and that methodologies and observation dates differ across datasets. Metrics such as trading volume and institutional share can change quickly with market conditions, and some event details may later be revised. It also says certain company developments cited in the report come from media coverage and have not been confirmed by audited disclosures.
The sources listed in the report include CoinDesk Data, CCData Exchange Reviews, CryptoRank, Crypto Briefing, Mediaite, CoinDesk, CryptoSlate, The Block, CoinMarketCap, Forbes, Yellow and comments by GSR head of markets Spencer Hallarn on The Desk podcast. For Standard Chartered SC Ventures’ stake in GSR, the report cites CoinDesk and Ledger Insights reports dated May 5, 2026.
BigTime says the industry and company facts in the report come from public reporting, with some figures based on media-circulated accounts, and that the industry conclusions are BigTime’s own research analysis. It says the material is not investment advice, an offer or a promise of returns, and that past performance does not represent future results.
