What is designated
market making?

How two-sided quoting works

In an order-book market, a market maker posts prices at which it is willing to buy and sell, for specified sizes. The gap between the best buy and sell prices is the spread. Depth describes the available size across price levels.

Quotes are not static commitments regardless of conditions. Prices, available balances, market movements and exposure limits affect what a desk can quote. Fills change its inventory and risk.

Order books, AMMs and RFQ are different

On an exchange, orders interact through that venue’s matching engine. Coinbase documents price-time priority and self-trade prevention for its exchange. AMMs instead use pool mechanisms; an RFQ system asks for an executable quote.

Jupiter’s webhook RFQ model sends requests to participating makers and coordinates signed settlement. Do not assume that an order-book uptime metric and RFQ quote availability measure the same activity.

What belongs in the mandate?

• Supported assets, pairs, venues and operating hours.
• Spread, depth, availability or execution measures appropriate to that venue.
• Inventory ownership, access permissions and exposure limits.
• Fees, reporting, exceptions and incident responsibilities.
• Review, termination and asset-return procedures.

A useful mandate makes trade-offs explicit. Tighter quotes at larger sizes can require more capital and expose inventory to more risk. Read our selection guide for the questions to ask.

What market making cannot promise

Available liquidity can make it easier to execute trades, but it cannot ensure a token will appreciate, attract organic demand or maintain a minimum price. A desk can lose money through inventory moves, adverse selection, execution costs or operational failures.

Activity is not the same as profitability. Assess a record using its measurement window, cost coverage and inventory treatment. Astrum publishes an own-capital execution record with those limits stated.

How Astrum approaches the work

Astrum Liquidity is a UK-registered trading and market-making desk. We develop and operate our own Rust execution technology and currently trade our own capital on Jupiter RFQ. Issuer engagements are scoped around actual integration capability, inventory limits and measurable delivery.

We assess additional token and venue requirements before committing. For a planned launch, start with the TGE liquidity checklist; for a budget discussion, start with the cost guide.