Tony Kim
Jan 13, 2026 15:00
Wintermute’s annual OTC market assessment reveals institutional buying and selling clustered in Bitcoin and Ethereum as altcoin momentum pale all through 2025.
Wintermute has launched its 2025 digital asset OTC market assessment, providing a granular take a look at how institutional buying and selling conduct shifted over the previous 12 months. The important thing takeaway: liquidity more and more clustered round Bitcoin and Ethereum whereas broader altcoin rallies did not maintain momentum.
The report arrives at a pivotal second for crypto market construction. Institutional gamers now account for over 60% of OTC market exercise, in keeping with business information from early January 2026. That dominance has essentially altered how capital strikes via digital asset markets—large-volume execution now occurs primarily via OTC 2.0 platforms slightly than change order books.
The Altcoin Liquidity Drought
Maybe probably the most putting discovering: regardless of periodic altcoin pumps all through 2025, sustained liquidity by no means adopted. Wintermute’s OTC desk information, referenced in a January 13 report, reveals buying and selling exercise remained stubbornly concentrated within the two largest property by market cap.
This sample breaks from earlier cycles the place altcoin seasons drew important institutional rebalancing. The shift suggests skilled merchants have grown extra selective, prioritizing property with deeper order books and clearer regulatory standing over speculative performs.
Derivatives Progress Reshapes Capital Flows
Regulatory readability throughout main jurisdictions catalyzed substantial derivatives quantity in 2025. The report examines how this shift redirected capital towards clearinghouses and custody infrastructure—the plumbing that institutional gamers require earlier than deploying severe dimension.
Stablecoins continued their ascent because the bridge between conventional and digital finance. Transaction volumes reportedly exceeded Visa’s throughput at varied factors through the 12 months, cementing their function in institutional settlement.
What This Means for Merchants
The focus of liquidity in BTC and ETH carries sensible implications. Merchants in search of to maneuver dimension in mid-cap tokens face wider spreads and better slippage than the headline market cap figures may counsel. The hole between on-paper valuations and executable liquidity has widened.
For these monitoring market construction evolution, Wintermute’s full report—accessible on their insights portal—gives the granular OTC movement information that hardly ever surfaces publicly. The FCA-registered market maker (FRN: 928764) processes important institutional quantity, making their perspective on liquidity dynamics value analyzing.
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