Exclusive: Crypto Market Maker Wincent Plans US Push After 80% Staff Growth Since 2024

Wincent, a crypto market maker based in Gibraltar, is preparing to expand into the United States and is studying a move into traditional financial markets. Chief Executive Tom Mazur outlined the plans to FinanceMagnates.com after a rebrand on September 30.

"We have become a much larger and more institutional business," Mazur said.

London's trading industry is coming home!

Its over-the-counter (OTC) desk already trades with retail brokers, CFD providers, banks and exchange-traded fund Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a collection of a mixture assets, i.e. stocks, commodities, bonds, or cryptocurrencies that tracks an index or underlying portfolio of investments.Of note, an ETF functions an arbitrage mechanism that is designed to keep it trading close to its net asset value. Most tradable ETFs track a specific index. This most commonly mirrors a stock or bond index. The popularity of ETFs has grown in recent years and are seen as an attractive investment due to its low cost, e An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a collection of a mixture assets, i.e. stocks, commodities, bonds, or cryptocurrencies that tracks an index or underlying portfolio of investments.Of note, an ETF functions an arbitrage mechanism that is designed to keep it trading close to its net asset value. Most tradable ETFs track a specific index. This most commonly mirrors a stock or bond index. The popularity of ETFs has grown in recent years and are seen as an attractive investment due to its low cost, e Read this Term issuers, Mazur said in written answers to questions.

In March, Wincent opened its crypto pricing to CFD platforms through a deal with Wyden, and it now reports more than $5 billion in average daily notional volume across over 15 exchanges and venues.

The firm trades through Wincent Investment Fund PCC Limited, an Experienced Investor Fund regulated by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC). Founders, management and staff provide a large share of the fund's capital, according to Mazur, and the fund is closed to new investments.

Former Citadel Executive to Lead US Push

Shawn Egger has joined Wincent to lead the US expansion, Mazur said, adding that Egger previously held senior roles at Citadel and Crypto.com.

"My mandate is to build and expand Wincent’s presence across the United States, with a focus on institutional relationships, market making, liquidity, tokenization and financial infrastructure," Egger wrote on his LinkedIn last week.

Egger worked in FX sales at Citadel Securities from 2014 and moved to Jefferies as a senior vice president in its forex sales team in 2018. Two years later, crypto prime broker SFOX hired him to run execution services, Hedgeweek reported.

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The only regulator Wincent names is the GFSC. Mazur said the firm reviews the rules in each market where it operates or sees room to grow, and has no further licensing announcements to make.

Wintermute took a registered route into the same market. It set up a US headquarters in New York in May 2025 and hired a former Blockchain Association director to run policy.

In August, its subsidiary Wintermute USA LLC registered as a broker-dealer with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which lets it trade US equities and exchange-traded products.

SBI-owned B2C2 named a chief executive for its US unit in New Jersey in September 2024.

Headcount Up 80% Since 2024

Wincent employs 173 people, up from 96 in 2024 and 150 in 2025, Mazur said. The staff work across quantitative research, trading, engineering, institutional business development and support.

"We have become a much larger and more institutional business," Mazur told FinanceMagnates.com.

The firm says it trades more than 300 digital assets, executes over a million trades a day and has more than $750 million in deployed capital. When it joined Wyden's network in March, it cited roughly 500,000 trades alongside the same $5 billion volume figure.

Brothers Matus and Michal Kopf founded Wincent in 2017 as a manual trading operation, Hedgeweek reported.

Both remain on the leadership team as co-founders running investments, while Mazur said he took over as chief executive in July.

"We have no intention of losing the entrepreneurial mindset," he said, pointing to the speed and appetite for calculated risk that built the firm.

New offices will follow only where there is a clear commercial case, according to Mazur. He gave no timeline for the US expansion.

A Trading Firm Inside a Fund

The rebrand release described Wincent as both "a global investment fund" and "a global digital asset trading firm." Mazur called it a high-frequency trading firm first and said the fund is simply how it organizes its capital.

"Market making and trading are what we do," Mazur said.

Crypto market making stays the priority, he said, but Wincent is selectively looking at tokenized assets and traditional markets where institutions want deeper liquidity.

"Any expansion into adjacent markets will build on that foundation rather than come at its expense," Mazur said.

Traffic also runs the other way. Citadel Securities took a $400 million stake in Crypto.com in July, as Crypto.com pushes into tokenized securities and derivatives.

Wincent's own business has leaned crypto-native. In March, Boris Sebosik, chief business development officer, said about 60% of Wincent's OTC flow came from crypto-native institutions.

He expected banks adding retail crypto products to shift that mix. Mazur now lists asset managers, hedge funds, token issuers, miners and fintechs among its counterparties, alongside exchanges.

Serving that range requires access to global banking rails, which Mazur said the firm has worked on for years.

Beyond the US, Wincent lists offices in Zurich, London, Bratislava, Warsaw, Dubai and Hong Kong, among other cities. The rebrand swaps the firm's gold for deep blue and redraws its dragon logo in a more geometric form, with the new identity rolling out already.