Recently, the history of DWF Labs and Andrei Grachev reviewed by crypto KOL Huma seemed to be unveiled as a “fig leaf”.
DWF Labs has become controversial again recently. At the Web3 Connect forum held during Token 2049, four market makers, DWF Labs, GSR, Wintermute and OKX, discussed on the same stage. In the event photos shared by the market maker GSR, DWF Labs was linked to Created by Andrei Grachev photo culling.
GSR related accounts stated on the X platform that DWF Labs is absolutely not qualified to join the group discussion. Being in the same room with DWF Labs is an insult to GSR, Wintermute and OKX. Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy liked the post.
In response, Andrei Grachev, co-founder of DWF Labs, responded: "I never thought you would be so afraid of us. Yes, we are better than you in technology, transactions, business development, etc. You actually started to cooperate with competitors, and... Complain like a child and denigrate us. Okay but our market making service is great and we will eat your market share like cake and there is nothing you can do about it. Will see it in my mailbox soon your resume”.
This is not the first time that DWF Labs has "made trouble". Previously, The Block broke the news that DWF Labs’ multi-million-dollar investment in crypto startups should not be called an “investment” and was more appropriately treated as an over-the-counter transaction. DWF Labs’ “investment + market making” composite operating model has aroused heated discussion in the crypto community. DWF believes that Wintermute instigated The Block to discredit itself because Wintermute’s founder and CEO Evgeny Gaevoy is a board member and shareholder of The Block.
Recently, the history of DWF Labs and Andrei Grachev reviewed by crypto KOL Huma seemed to be unveiled as a “fig leaf”.
DWF Labs bottom
DWF Labs, a year ago was unknown in the crypto space, but now they are at the center of the crypto stage. They call themselves a market making and investment company. Where did DWF Labs come from? Who are the founder Andrei Grachev and team members? In the following, I hope to present in an objective manner all the information gathered so far.
Andrei Grachev’s past
Andrei Grachev emerged in the Russian crypto community around 2017. Before that, he worked in the logistics industry, far away from the tech world. He was the founder of several logistics companies, all of which are now closed. In the cryptocurrency community, he introduces himself as a successful trader and partner of Crypsis Blockchain Holding .
Additionally, Grachev served as Vice President of RACIB in 2018. RACIB is a non-profit organization closely associated with a state-owned bank called VEB (Foreign Economic Bank), and their main goal is to promote cryptocurrency regulation in Russia. In 2019, Grachev became the head of Huobi Russia. His partner at RACIB is Vladimir Demin, who also became the head of Huobi Russia after Grachev. Vladimir Demin is also a senior manager at VEB Ventures, a venture fund of a major Russian state bank. Demin and Grachev later co-founded VRM.trade (the predecessor of DWF Labs).
Grachev also led a questionable project called Export.online , which originally planned to launch an ICO but had to cancel it due to the bear market in 2018. Some project investors reported that Grachev misappropriated approximately $157,000 of their investments. According to LinkedIn profiles, Andrei Grachev is the CEO of the organization and Vladimir Perov is the chief technology officer. Vladimir Perov now also works at DWF Labs.
Furthermore, according to the forklog article referenced above, the owner of a company called DAS Index accused Grachev of not repaying his $10,000 debt in 2019, by which time Grachev had become the head of Huobi’s Russian branch.
VRM.trade
Demin and Grachev co-founded a high-frequency trading company called VRM.trade . It's unclear exactly what they are doing and how large it is. They claim a daily trading volume of $10-20 billion. Here is Grachev's AMA on VRM. and self -reports at the time.
VRM’s team members (same source as above):
Zac Zou now also works at DWF Labs. Additionally, Zac Zou is the founder of HTR Trade. VRM and LD Capital jointly invested in HTR Trade. The VRM team has also created its own OTC platform called Black Ocean .
The following is a list of VRM’s partners, which also includes three Chinese-backed investment institutions: LD Capital , YGG, and AKG Ventures.
FLY (Franklin Token)
FLY is the native token of Black Ocean exchange. The white paper can be found here. According to CoinGecko data, FLY’s price has been falling since the beginning and now has a market capitalization of $350,000.
Interestingly, their X and Medium accounts appear to still be "active":
DWF Labs
So, where did DWF Labs suddenly come from? DWF is renamed from VRM. VRM Trade’s last tweet was on May 31, 2022, and the DWF Labs domain name was registered on May 30, 2022. Is there any specific reason for the rebrand? Still unknown.
On March 20, 2023, DWF Labs sent $7.5 million in USDT to a wallet that transferred $163,000 to a wallet labeled "AyeletNoff" on OpenSea. Ayelet Noff is the founder and CEO of public relations agency SlicedBrand: Is this money to get more media attention for DWF, or is it to help market the projects in which DWF invests? This is still up for debate.
in conclusion
This concludes our investigation into the history of DWF Labs. The author does not form any opinion on these matters and wishes only to provide this information objectively.
