Key takeaways

  • A market maker sells liquidity, not demand. It cannot hold a price buyers do not want to pay.

  • Volume is not liquidity. In 2,121 order books we measured on 5 Oct 2026, volume explained only 23% of depth.

  • 72.9% of those books were thin, under $10k within 2%, on at least one side.

  • The 2% depth figure flatters. Only 14.8% of it sat within 0.5% of the price in the median book.

  • A token loan is not free. The calls on a $1M loan are worth about $275k to $550k in our model, against $180k for a year of retainer on three exchanges.

  • Run CEX and DEX on one book, start 60 to 90 days before TGE, and keep going for at least 12 months after it.

Volume is the wrong scoreboard

We took a live snapshot of 2,121 USDT books on Gate and MEXC. Tokens trading $1M to $10M a day had anywhere from $5.3k to $608k of 2% depth, a 116x gap at the same volume. 238 books traded more than 100 times their own depth in a day. Binance lists volume that does not match price and liquidity as a red flag.

Volume explains only 23% of depth. Source: TDMM, 5 Oct 2026.

Price the “free” deal

Loans of 1% to 5% of supply with call options need no cash, but at new-listing volatility the options can cost more than a retainer. Price them in dollars before you sign, use strikes above the listing price, and release the loan in tranches tied to delivered spread and depth.

What “free” costs. Source: TDMM model.

The other mistakes

Founders also sign contracts with no KPIs, hand over exchange keys with withdrawal rights, hire two weeks before listing (the median new listing moved 41.2% in hour one), seed a DEX pool and walk away, ignore Binance’s March 2026 disclosure guidance, and end the mandate at launch, just before the unlocks.

Seven questions before you sign

  1. What do you deliver per venue?

  2. How are you paid, in dollars?

  3. Whose accounts and keys?

  4. CEX and DEX on one book?

  5. Can the contract be disclosed to exchanges?

  6. How do we verify reports?

  7. What happens after TGE?

TDMM runs CEX and DEX market making for token projects on one book, before, at and after TGE, with spread, depth and uptime written in for every venue. Full guide: tdmm.io/insights/blog/what-founders-get-wrong-about-market-making/

#MarketMaking #TokenLaunch #TGE #CryptoLiquidity #TDMM

Disclaimer: Published by TDMM, a market maker, for information only. Not financial advice and not a promise about any token’s price or volume. Data is a point-in-time snapshot; models rest on stated assumptions. Digital assets are volatile.