Marina Gurevich
Wintermute has evolved. The way we operate, the markets we operate in, the scale we have reached, the role we play in the industry. We now serve everyone from crypto natives to the largest financial institutions in the world. We’d like that to be reflected in how we present ourselves. We still have the same DNA, same edge, and are the same people, just representing more of who we are today.
Wintermute has never been just another trading firm. Traditionally, trading firms operate behind the scenes, are secretive, and avoid attention. They rarely build products, and the brand is often an afterthought. That was never our approach.
From day one, we acted as a technology company as much as a trading company. We build products, we build brands, and we are public in who we are and what we do. If we want to build something great, we don’t look at legacy experience or what established companies in tradfi “usually do”. We think from first principles - if we want to build a great brand or a great product, what does it take? What does it look like? Then we just do it.
Brand has always mattered to us. We want it to reflect Wintermute DNA, to help us spread our personality, knowledge and expertise. We want to be transparent about who we are, what we do, what we believe in. We want your experience interacting with Wintermute to be professional, easy, and visually pleasant.
The overarching theme of our brand is “Harnessing Chaos”. The markets are complex, fragmented, and often random. There are dozens of chains, hundreds of trading venues and platforms, thousands of tokens, the prices are volatile. We know how to operate in this chaos and we know how to “harness” it into more orderly, liquid and efficient markets. We connect various liquidity pools, we use signals, we provide liquidity. We execute OTC transactions of any size and any token in a way that’s easy for a counterparty - one click, transaction done - while our algos seamlessly execute it across over 100+ trading platforms across CeFi, DeFi, and TradFi. If you trade on any exchange and get a price, chances are that we are on the other side of the transaction, rain or shine, making it possible at the lowest spread.
One major market evolution we’ve seen is the entry and growth of “TradFi” - the financial institutions - into digital markets. Our philosophy is to be in “every room where it happens”, and we believe in the convergence of traditional financial markets and digital asset markets. We are excited about the innovation that crypto can bring to the financial system at large. We want to reflect it in our brand and speak to our TradFi partners. Yet, we also want to be true to our crypto natives roots and our numerous crypto partners whom we grew together with.
From the design point of view we had a significant challenge: develop a visual language that represents our DNA yet speaks to different audiences in a way that is convenient to them. After lots of thoughts, blood, and tears to make it “exactly us” and "exactly right,” we believe we have achieved it. The lighter theme is made to speak to traditional financial institutions and is more professional, sleek, and polished. Our darker theme with brighter colors is our crypto native theme, which is more playful.
The name Wintermute comes from the novel Neuromancer, where it is the name of an AI character. It came from Evgeny’s love for sci-fi books and his futuristic thinking and it applies to how we were building a technology-forward company in a nascent industry.
Our Wintermute logo was designed in 2017 for $299 on 99designs in an open competition. We did not think it was a good use of funds to pay the extra $1000 to make the contest private, so you can still find it online. It was designed to be more than just a W. Depending on how you look at it, you can see a starfighter, a robot, a figure with a helmet or a crown.
We always wanted to be transparent and offer a lot of content on our website. I built the first three generations of our websites myself during long weekend nights on platforms like Wix. What you see now is the same DNA, just executed much better for the scale we’re at.
We love our logo, and we are staying true to it; it is as relevant to us as it was before. The logo was always green, yet if it was a “retro gaming” green before, it has evolved to become a “Gibson green”, and we’ve developed a deep palette of secondary and tertiary colors to have a wider set of tools to work with.
You’ll see this new look across everything we do. A clearer, more defined presence across all our channels, relevant to you and making it convenient for you. Today we are launching the complete rebrand: a new website and updated designs across all the channels you can speak with us: X, LinkedIn, emails, TG, conferences, offices, and more!
