If liquidity is the lifeblood of DeFi, crypto market makers are the donors who make sure the veins and capillaries remain well-stocked. It is, after all, these deep-pocketed entities who provide exchanges with the reserves they need to improve trading execution and win users’ hearts and minds.

While the market making scene is fiercely competitive, DWF Labs has emerged as one of the biggest and best. Among the world’s largest high-frequency crypto trading entities, the company has been instrumental in developing the liquidity infrastructure of not just several exchanges but also multiple networks and protocols.

It also trades spot and derivatives markets on over 60 top exchanges, supports 35% of CoinMarketCap’s Top 1,000 projects, and burnishes its grassroot connections by running multiple validator nodes on various protocols.

What Makes a Market Maker

The counterparts of tradfi behemoths like Merril Lynch and JPMorgan, crypto market makers play an invaluable role in the Web3 ecosystem, their deep reserves of liquidity supporting efficient asset trading even in the most volatile conditions. Their expertise extends beyond providing capital for decentralized markets, though.

In a recent interview with omnichain liquidity layer Orderly Network, one of its clients, DWF Labs explained that it combined liquidity provision with strategic advisory services, funding support, and global partnerships with the goal of helping projects grow sustainably.

The take-home message appeared to be that DWF was greater than the sum of its parts, a collaborator and trusted partner as well as a financier contributing tens of millions to TVL on-chain to support early protocols.

Clearly, being a successful DeFi market maker requires a unique blend of strategy, resources, and experience. In the case of DWF Labs, an extensive global network of partners doesn’t hurt either. Indeed, last year it helped establish a $5 million growth platform for Web3 businesses at the DMCC Crypto Centre, a leading hub for crypto businesses in Dubai.

This past May, the market maker also received the Best Liquidity Provider Award at the Blockchain Life Forum, also held in UAE city.

What DWF Labs Looks for in Web3 Projects

For projects seeking to engage with a major market maker, several factors are crucial. For starters, they must have an committed and experienced team in place, solid fundamentals behind their project or service, and a well-defined roadmap.

“Our mission is to support the industry,” wrote DWF Cofounder Andrei Grachev on X recently. “DWF Labs learns every day, and offers the widest range of solutions that can help projects with almost everything.”

Interestingly, the market maker engages with both order booking trading on CEXs and DeFi AMMs, straddling the CeFi/DeFi divide when it can add value and support its own business model. In addition to providing liquidity, it also makes strategic capital investments like a typical VC, backing visionary founders and groundbreaking projects that push the industry forward.

Securing a professional market maker can make a Web3 project, whether it’s a CEX, DEX, or protocol, just as a failure to do so can sound its death knell. With a new generation of market makers making liquidity just one aspect of their services, though, promising projects can potentially look forward to much more than capital provision.