Wintermute Co-Founder Evgeny Gaevoy on Asian Crypto Markets, AI in Trading and Liquidity Fragmentation

Evgeny Gaevoy began his career in traditional finance, specializing in market making and prop trading. But by 2016, seeing the inefficiencies of legacy financial systems and the potential for disintermediation, Gaevoy realized there was an opportunity to create something entirely new and better.

Evgeny Gaevoy, CEO and co-founder of Wintermute, began his career in traditional finance, working in market making and prop trading before pivoting to the crypto industry in 2017. In this interview, Gaevoy discusses the differences between Western and Asian crypto markets, the role of AI in trading and market making and how Wintermute is navigating the growing fragmentation of liquidity across multiple blockchains.

CoinDesk: What led you to start Wintermute?

Evgeny Gaevoy: I started looking into the blockchain around 2016, which is relatively late compared to some early adopters. At the time, I was in traditional finance and what really interested me was disintermediation – cutting out the inefficiencies of custodians and prime brokers, which were painfully slow in how they operated. Blockchain seemed like a great way to disrupt that.

But back then, it all felt very theoretical. It wasn’t until 2017 that I really got into crypto. I quit my job, started looking around, and bought a small amount of bitcoin on Coinbase – just to test it out. Then it doubled in price in a week or two, and I barely paid attention because the volatility was just so insane compared to what I was used to in TradFi.

In TradFi market making, there are maybe 10 days a year when things get really exciting – when markets move 3-4%, and that’s considered a big deal. But in crypto, that kind of movement happens all the time. So I figured, I know prop trading, I know market making and I like building things from scratch – so why not build a market-making business in crypto? That’s how Wintermute came to be.

CoinDesk: You’ve been actively engaged in both Western and Asian markets – what are the biggest differences you’ve observed between the two?

Evgeny Gaevoy: Regulation-wise, everything is still primarily driven by the U.S. Even in Asia, most companies watch what the U.S. is doing rather than setting their own independent course.

When it comes to OTC and institutional trading, China is the biggest missing piece. Chinese institutions and corporations are still not allowed to touch crypto, and until the Chinese Communist Party changes its stance, we won’t see proper institutional flows from there.

CoinDesk: What key opportunities are you seeing coming out of Asia right now?

Evgeny Gaevoy: The most interesting development right now is how certain countries are opening up to crypto in meaningful ways.

Japan is becoming increasingly attractive due to its improved tax policies for crypto. By reducing tax burdens on crypto holdings, the country is making it easier for both businesses and individuals to participate in the market without excessive financial penalties. This is a significant move that could drive liquidity and institutional involvement.

South Korea is another exciting case, mainly because of its massive retail market. However, a major limitation is that foreign market makers are still restricted from integrating with local exchanges. If regulators were to allow external liquidity providers to participate, it could unlock a tremendous amount of liquidity.

Right now, Korean exchanges remain fairly isolated, which is why we still see phenomena like the Kimchi premium – a direct result of structural barriers preventing global liquidity from flowing freely into the market.

Hong Kong, on the other hand, plays a unique role as a pilot program for China. While China still officially bans crypto, Hong Kong is establishing regulated markets and institutional frameworks that could serve as a testing ground for how China might engage with crypto in the future. This makes Hong Kong an important region to watch, especially in terms of institutional adoption.

The key thing to watch is how these markets evolve, because they each offer different entry points into Asia’s crypto adoption cycle – Japan is attracting institutions with tax incentives, Korea is a retail-heavy market with potential liquidity unlocks, and Hong Kong is a regulatory experiment that could have broader implications for China.

CoinDesk: What have been some of the lesser-known or unexpected catalysts driving crypto adoption and liquidity in Asia?

Evgeny Gaevoy: The biggest surprise for me is that a lot of the narratives we see on Crypto Twitter and from VCs don’t reflect what’s actually happening on the ground.

A great example is Tron and Tether. In Asia and Latin America, USDT on Tron is the most widely used crypto asset for payments, especially for the unbanked and those looking to escape currency devaluation. But in the West, nobody talks about it.

There are also a lot of projects and DeFi protocols that get ignored in the Western echo chamber but are doing really well in Asia. That’s why I think it’s crucial to keep a pulse on what’s happening in Asia, rather than just relying on Western narratives.

CoinDesk: Do you think AI will ever autonomously run an entire market-making operation?

Evgeny Gaevoy: AI is already widely used in trading, and it has been for quite some time.