Liquidity on on-chain orderbooks, RFQ, and AMM venues. Various asset classes.
DeFi market making is not CeFi market making with a different API. On-chain venues settle on block time, not microseconds. Oracle feeds introduce their own latency profile. MEV changes the shape of adverse selection in ways spot books never taught anyone.
A market maker that ignores those differences ends up either getting picked off repeatedly or quoting wide enough to give up the spread. Getting the economics right requires infrastructure designed for on-chain mechanics — not bolted onto a CeFi engine.
Raven's CTO built Wintermute's DeFi desk from zero. That heritage shapes how the firm operates on-chain today: on-chain orderbooks, RFQ protocols, and AMM venues are core business, not experimental allocations.
Active across on-chain orderbooks, perpetuals venues, RFQ, and AMM-based liquidity.
DeFi venues
On-chain orderbooks, perps, RFQ, and AMM liquidity
DeFi isn't where we expanded to. It's where we came from.
01
Our team was building in DeFi before the term existed. On-chain execution isn't a new discipline for us, it's the discipline the firm was built around.
02
We built Raven as an HFT firm first and a market maker second. That order matters. The result is tighter spreads, and quotes that stay live when slower shops widen or pull.
03
When volatility spikes, most market makers step back from the book entirely. We don't. Staying present when liquidity thins out is when counterparties feel the difference most.
01
Raven is active on on-chain orderbook venues (Hyperliquid, GRVT, Hibachi), derivatives and structured product venues like Derive, and major AMM and RFQ environments across leading L1 and L2 networks. Venue mix evolves as new infrastructure comes online and as existing venues change their fee or incentive structure.
02
Several factors make DeFi market making its own discipline. Settlement happens on-chain, which introduces latency and execution uncertainty that don't exist on CeFi venues. A quote that would be straightforward to cancel on a centralized exchange may be picked off by an arbitrageur before the cancellation lands on-chain. Managing this requires infrastructure designed for on-chain conditions, not CeFi tooling applied to a different environment. Gas costs and block-time dynamics shape how quoting works. On some chains, every quote update is a transaction with a real cost. On others, off-chain matching reduces that cost but introduces its own considerations. Either way, the economics of market making look different from CeFi, where quote updates are effectively free. Counterparty risk shifts. On a CeFi venue, the market maker has credit exposure to the exchange. On a DeFi venue, the exposure is to the smart contracts and the underlying chain. Evaluating this is a different kind of due diligence, and it's ongoing as protocols upgrade and new risks emerge.
03
Yes. Raven provides liquidity across a range of DeFi structures, including AMM-based venues alongside on-chain order books, RFQ protocols, and prediction markets. Each venue type has its own mechanics, and our approach is calibrated to what the specific venue structure rewards. For venues or protocols with AMM components, hybrid designs, or non-standard liquidity structures, the most direct way to understand what an engagement might look like is to have the conversation.
04
Yes. We regularly integrate with new venues as part of launch partnerships. If you are building an on-chain order book, AMM, RFQ system, or prediction market, we can evaluate the protocol's architecture, integrate our systems, and provide professional liquidity from the first day of trading. Early integration allows us to help shape market microstructure decisions (fee tiers, tick sizes, incentive design) that affect long-term liquidity quality.
05
Most DeFi liquidity comes from passive retail depositors who spread capital inefficiently and withdraw during volatile periods. This produces wide spreads, shallow depth at active trading prices, and unreliable liquidity that degrades precisely when it is needed most. Institutional market makers solve this by actively managing positions: concentrating capital where trading occurs, adjusting quotes in real time as prices move, and maintaining liquidity through all market conditions including periods of stress. On on-chain order book platforms, the need is even more direct, as these venues require active participants placing and updating limit orders, just like a centralized exchange. Without professional market makers, even technically well-built DeFi platforms struggle to generate the liquidity quality that attracts sustained trading activity.
Raven partners with DeFi venues and protocols where our on-chain execution and DeFi-native team genuinely move the metrics.
Let's connect →