Wintermute has released its 2025 digital asset OTC market review, offering a granular look at how institutional trading behavior shifted over the past year. The key takeaway: liquidity increasingly clustered around Bitcoin and Ethereum while broader altcoin rallies failed to sustain momentum.

The report arrives at a pivotal moment for crypto market structure. Institutional players now account for over 60% of OTC market activity, according to industry data from early January 2026. That dominance has fundamentally altered how capital moves through digital asset markets—large-volume execution now happens primarily through OTC 2.0 platforms rather than exchange order books.

The Altcoin Liquidity Drought

Perhaps the most striking finding: despite periodic altcoin pumps throughout 2025, sustained liquidity never followed. Wintermute’s OTC desk data, referenced in a January 13 report, shows trading activity remained stubbornly concentrated in the two largest assets by market cap.

This pattern breaks from previous cycles where altcoin seasons drew significant institutional rebalancing. The shift suggests professional traders have grown more selective, prioritizing assets with deeper order books and clearer regulatory status over speculative plays.

Derivatives Growth Reshapes Capital Flows

Regulatory clarity across major jurisdictions catalyzed substantial derivatives volume in 2025. The report examines how this shift redirected capital toward clearinghouses and custody infrastructure—the plumbing that institutional players require before deploying serious size.

Stablecoins continued their ascent as the bridge between traditional and digital finance. Transaction volumes reportedly exceeded Visa’s throughput at various points during the year, cementing their role in institutional settlement.

What This Means for Traders

The concentration of liquidity in BTC and ETH carries practical implications. Traders seeking to move size in mid-cap tokens face wider spreads and higher slippage than the headline market cap figures might suggest. The gap between on-paper valuations and executable liquidity has widened.

For those tracking market structure evolution, Wintermute’s full report—available on their insights portal—provides the granular OTC flow data that rarely surfaces publicly. The FCA-registered market maker (FRN: 928764) processes significant institutional volume, making their perspective on liquidity dynamics worth examining.

Image source: Shutterstock