Here is the English translation of the text, with the specified terms translated as requested: The crypto market has been turbulent, and as investors are panicked by the early morning plunge, two major traditional market makers have quietly entered the US crypto market, bringing hope to the desolate market - Citadel Securities, the largest market maker on the New York Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of $65 billion, plans to enter the crypto currency market making field, betting that President Trump's support for the crypto industry will bring market prosperity; while the traditional crypto market maker Wintermute is entering the US market, planning to expand its over-the-counter trading and derivatives business in the US, and also opening an office in New York. The moves of these two major market maker giants are like a weathervane for the market, does this mean that the market makers who previously left the US market due to strict SEC regulation are now making a strong comeback under the new regulatory framework?

Will market maker regulation continue to be relaxed?

For a long time, the US regulation of the crypto industry has been quite harsh. During the Biden administration, the SEC took a strict regulatory stance, viewing many crypto assets as securities, which means that market makers involved in these assets must register as broker-dealers and comply with the relevant requirements of securities laws. This requirement has also led to a large number of litigation disputes. For example, on October 9, 2024, the SEC brought fraud charges against three companies claiming to be market makers and nine individuals, alleging that they were involved in manipulating various crypto asset markets by creating the illusion of an active trading market for investors to buy crypto assets. In addition, on March 29, 2023, the US Securities and Exchange Commission accused the crypto asset trading platform Beaxy and its executives of failing to register as a national securities exchange, broker-dealer and clearing agency, and that the platform's founder Artak Hamazaspyan and his controlled company Beaxy Digital, Ltd. raised $8 million through the unregistered issuance of Beaxy tokens (BXY), and also brought charges against the platform's market makers as unregistered dealers. These actions reflect the SEC's strict regulation of crypto market participants, aimed at protecting investors, but also increasing compliance costs and legal risks. In such a strict and uncertain regulatory environment, many crypto market makers can only reduce their market participation in the US, or even completely withdraw. In an interview with BlockBeats in 2023, Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy mentioned: "In 2021, we didn't deal with the SEC at all, so we deliberately decided to register in the UK for spot trading; and in the UK, they clearly stated that they don't want to provide derivatives to retail customers, so we completely avoided this risk by placing our derivatives business in Singapore. But in the US, we have almost no business, because all our business activities are basically happening outside the US. So we have deliberately avoided this issue in many ways, and in fact we are now more focused on Asia, so we have moved to Singapore." However, with the change of power, the direction of regulation also changes with the attitude of those in power. Since Trump took office in January 2025, a series of policies supporting the crypto industry have been successively introduced. On January 23, 2025, Trump signed an executive order emphasizing support for the responsible growth of digital assets, blockchain technology and related technologies, and rescinding the relevant policies of the Biden administration. The order also established a digital asset working group within the National Economic Council, aimed at proposing a federal regulatory framework, including market structure, oversight, consumer protection and risk management. Furthermore, on January 21, 2025, the SEC announced the establishment of a cryptocurrency working group led by Republican Commissioner Hester Peirce, aimed at developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework, reducing the previous enforcement-led approach, and striving to distinguish which "crypto assets" are securities, potentially changing the way companies register, and providing clear statements on the approval or rejection of exchange-traded products. These changes are seen by the industry as signals of crypto-friendly policies, and are expected to lower compliance barriers and attract more market participants.

Will the return of traditional market makers make the crypto market better?

The change in regulatory policy is like a key that gradually opens the door to the US crypto market, bringing new vitality to the market, as well as a series of opportunities and challenges. Citadel Securities, a financial company headquartered in Chicago, USA, was founded in 2002 and is one of the world's largest market makers, mainly involved in trading in stocks, futures, foreign exchange, bonds and other fields. Citadel Securities plans to expand into the crypto currency market making business, marking a major shift in the company's previously cautious attitude towards the crypto currency sector, betting that the favorable regulatory environment under the Trump administration will drive growth in this asset class. The company has already planned to join the market maker lists of exchanges such as Coinbase Global, Binance and Crypto.com, and may initially set up a market making team outside the US. At the Consensus Hong Kong 2025 conference, Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy said: "As the US gradually adopts cryptocurrencies, the risk aversion of traditional institutions will ease. The asset tokenization market will reach a scale of hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars, and assets will be used as collateral or collateral. For liquidity, more people's participation will drive deeper liquidity. I also hope that the regulation of the crypto field can promote the transformation of market pricing." In an interview with Bloomberg, Gaevoy said that the company's business expansion plans have changed, with a previous focus on the Asian market, and now shifting the focus to the US, and expressed hope that the US will introduce favorable crypto currency regulatory policies. On February 24, according to Arkham's monitoring, Wintermute has withdrawn 106,885 SOL, about $167.1 million, from Binance in the past 6 hours, and some speculate that this is in preparation for its foray into the US market. Citadel Securities and Wintermute, one a veteran market maker in the traditional finance field and the other a major market maker giant in the crypto field. Their entry will undoubtedly directly increase the liquidity of the US crypto market, attract more institutional investors, and may drive the growth of trading activity. Especially the entry of the traditional financial giant Citadel, which will directly push the crypto market from the "wild growth" period to maturity, promoting the comprehensive improvement of the market in terms of liquidity, trading efficiency and regulatory compliance, and also indicates that as the US regulatory framework evolves, the confidence of institutions in the crypto industry is constantly increasing, and the US crypto market may enter a new growth phase. However, challenges still exist, such as how to balance supporting industry development and investor protection, how to divide regulatory responsibilities between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and how to solve the concerns about monopoly by multiple major market makers. Especially with the entry of Citadel Securities, its cooperation with major exchanges will directly squeeze the market share of the current leading market makers, further encroaching on the survival space of small and medium-sized market makers, and increasing the competitive pressure in the industry. At the same time, it will also further increase the concentration of market makers, which is contrary to the decentralized concept of the crypto industry. In addition, Wintermute was once hacked for $160 million in on-chain assets due to algorithmic vulnerabilities (2022 incident), and the systemic risks of traditional giants are also worth watching.

The return of Citadel and Wintermute is a sign of the integration of traditional finance and the crypto ecosystem. As the $65 billion traditional market-making giant enters the arena, and Wintermute further connects the bridge between Eastern and Western capital, the market is witnessing the process of liquidity transformation. The strategic adjustments of the two major market-making giants are essentially a paradigm shift from "regulatory arbitrage" to "regulatory coordination". If the US can establish a layered regulatory system (such as rules based on token types and investor categories), it may give rise to an even larger institutional-level crypto market. However, we need to be vigilant about the risks of excessive penetration of traditional financial forces leading to centralization - the future crypto market may no longer be "disrupting Wall Street", but "dancing with Wall Street". Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community: Telegram subscription group: https://t.me/theblockbeats Telegram discussion group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App Twitter official account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia