How to choose a crypto market maker
In 2024–2025, several market-making firms were convicted, banned or dissolved for selling fake volume — and one of the biggest token collapses of the cycle (MOVE) traced back to a predatory market-making contract. Choosing your MM is a survival decision. Here's how to do it.
Step 1: Know what an honest MM can — and cannot — promise
A market maker controls exactly three things:
- Spread — how tight the gap between bid and ask is,
- Depth — how much can be traded near the mid-price without moving it,
- Uptime — how reliably those quotes are present, 24/7.
That's the entire list. Volume comes from real traders; price comes from supply and demand. Any firm promising either is describing market manipulation. The FBI's Operation Token Mirrors created a fake token specifically to record MM firms making those promises — 18 defendants were charged, and "the token wasn't a security" was not a defense (the charges were wire fraud and market-manipulation conspiracy).
Step 2: Ask these questions before any call
- "Send me your standard term sheet." Refusal to show terms before a sales call is a red flag by itself.
- "Which venues and pairs have you quoted in the last 12 months?" Demand names, not logos.
- "What exactly are your KPIs, and what happens when you miss them?" The right answer contains numbers and remedies (e.g. fee credits) — not adjectives.
- "How do I verify you?" The 2026 standard is a read-only dashboard plus daily reports. "Trust us" is not a reporting standard.
- "Who profits if my token price falls?" With loan+option structures, the honest answer can be "we do". Make them say it.
Step 3: Scan the contract for these red flags
| Red flag | Why it's dangerous |
|---|---|
| Volume guarantees / volume KPIs | Only achievable by wash trading. Criminal liability — for the MM and potentially for you. |
| Price targets or "price support" | Same category. Also: it doesn't work. |
| Quantity-denominated token loans | The MM repays a fixed token amount, so it profits from selling your token and buying back cheaper. This was the MOVE/Web3Port playbook. |
| Low-strike call options | Free upside for the MM regardless of service quality. |
| Undisclosed intermediaries / side agreements | The MOVE scandal ran through a middleman appearing on both sides of the deal. Demand full disclosure in writing. |
| Exclusivity + long lock-ups + no KPIs | You're trapped with no lever if service is poor. |
| Ranking/listing-metric services | CMC/CoinGecko manipulation — prosecuted in the same DOJ operation. |
Step 4: Match the firm size to your project
Tier-1 market makers rarely take mandates below roughly $100M FDV, and their standard deals are loan+option structures. If you're a launchpad graduate or mid-cap listing, a boutique with a retainer model will usually give you more attention, cleaner terms and direct access to the people running your book. What matters is not size — it's whether the terms survive the checklist above.
Benchmark any offer. Our term-sheet template shows what honest terms look like — KPIs, remedies, exclusions and all. We share it with founders even if they never work with us.
Request the term sheet template