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The downturn is changing how crypto’s market making deals are done
Token launches in crypto have long followed a pattern: raise as much capital as possible in private markets, list the token, and hope demand materializes once trading begins. That approach has sometimes been enough when the markets are riding high, but the cracks become obvious when the weather turns.
“IPOs are largely engineered. Crypto launches are largely improvised,” said Shane Molidor, founder and CEO of web3 investment bank Forgd, on StrataMedia’s Talking Tokens podcast.
With prices down across most major crypto assets and new launches struggling to maintain traction, structural issues that were hidden by sunnier news now sit fully exposed. Lower trading volumes, thinner liquidity, and weaker post-launch performance are becoming the norm rather than the exception.
And unlike previous cycles, there’s less speculative demand to paper over those gaps, Molidor said.
“I think those structural issues have always existed. They’re just significantly more apparent now.”
At the center of the issue is how liquidity is formed and maintained after a token generation event (TGE). In traditional markets, companies about to go public work with underwriters to build demand and ensure stable trading conditions. In crypto, that process is often replaced by a mix of informal relationships, anecdotal referrals, and sometimes overly aggressive promises from service providers.
“Projects are often making decisions based on gut instinct,” Molidor said, referring to teams picking market makers. “For a highly quantitative service, that’s not the most intelligent route.”
This dynamic has created a feedback loop: firms compete by offering increasingly aggressive terms of tight spreads, deep liquidity and high uptime. However, there’s often no clear accountability around whether those commitments are actually met once trading goes live. In some cases, that results in a race to the bottom.
For Molidor, the shift now underway is less about eliminating market makers, and more about changing how they’re evaluated. He says Forgd has launched new capabilities that let projects evaluate crypto market makers with historical performance data.
Instead of relying on curated case studies or selective references, projects can compare firms across consistent metrics like spread management, order book depth, execution quality, and uptime.
“If a market maker is promising the world, you should be able to verify whether they’ve historically delivered on those promises,” Molidor said.
Molidor said the strongest firms tend to meet their quoted obligations more than 90% of the time, while the broader average falls closer to the 70%–80% range..
Still, performance is always tied to the broader market conditions. That variability makes static measures of reputation less reliable as a proxy for quality.
“The new form of reputation is quantifiable metrics,” Molidor said. “The legacy form is how good your sales desk is.”
This shift toward data-driven evaluation is also changing how deals are done. Instead of opaque, one-on-one negotiations, some projects are beginning to run more standardized request-for-quote processes in which multiple market makers’ submit proposals that can be compared side by side.
Beyond market making, the implications extend to how token launches are designed as well as a shift in mindset. Rather than treating token launches as discrete events optimized for getting a high initial valuation, projects may need to approach them as ongoing market processes that require sustained liquidity, participation, and alignment.
“There’s too much reliance on hope that demand will just appear,” Molidor said.
Tools that bring greater transparency to market maker performance are one piece of that transition. By standardizing how liquidity provision is measured and compared, data tools can introduce a level of accountability that has largely been missing from the ecosystem.
In that sense, the focus is less on who can launch, and more about who can maintain liquidity, credibility, and performance over time.
All in, Molidor’s message is simple: “Don’t rely on anecdotal evidence for something that can be measured.”
Check out the next section for more details and the full episode.
The latest Talking Tokens podcast 🎙️
For today’s episode, I interviewed Shane Molidor, founder and CEO of Forgd, about why token launches keep failing and what it would actually take to fix them. Shane, who previously led trading desks at Gemini, AscendEX, and FBG Capital before founding Forgd, explains why the structural gaps that bull markets used to hide are now fully exposed, and why founders, VCs, and public sale participants are all down bad as a result. He breaks down how IPOs are engineered with book building and underwriters while crypto launches rely on hope, retail speculation, and market makers that overpromise and underdeliver.
He walks through how Forgd's free-to-use benchmarking tool tracks over 600 market maker engagements across 35+ desks, why data-driven RFQs are replacing voice brokerage, and how the exchange listing decision between Binance and OKEx can meaningfully change the shape of a token's chart. The conversation covers why institutional demand for new launches is near zero, why active market making is a glorified pump and dump, and what a fundamental shift to fundraising and book building would actually look like.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 – Intro
01:06 – State of token launches months after crypto's all-time highs
02:03 – Structural gaps bull markets hide: who is getting hurt and how
05:23 – Why IPOs are engineered and crypto launches are improvised
06:56 – Should crypto adopt IPO-style book building and will it happen
08:41 – Is now a good time to launch a token? The double-edged sword argument
10:27 – Tools Forgd is seeing increased demand for right now
12:30 – How Forgd's benchmarking tool works: 600 engagements, 35+ market makers
15:43 – How reputation plays into market maker selection and what changes it
17:46 – Why data-driven RFQs are replacing legacy voice brokerage
21:39 – Why Shane built Forgd after running a trading desk and seeing the gap firsthand
26:51 – Top performing market makers on the leaderboard right now
29:35 – How founders say the historical data has changed their decision making
30:43 – Forgd's 2026 roadmap: exchange listing tools, tokenomics simulations, and AI
33:40 – Exchange listing strategy: what the data says about Binance vs OKEx vs Coinbase
39:30 – How institutional demand for new launches has collapsed and what teams are doing instead
42:22 – What the actual solution looks like: rethinking fundraising and book building
44:57 – Final advice: use data, not gut instinct, when selecting market makers .
This episode is sponsored by Forgd. Every token launch is high-stakes. Forgd helps projects get it right. Thousands of Web3 projects leverage Forgd’s free tools to design smarter tokenomics, engage market makers on fair terms, plan listings strategically, and monitor liquidity after launch. Start using the Forgd platform for free, or sign up for white-glove advisory services, at Forgd.com
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