The Art & Science of Crypto Market Making: Inside Kairon Labs

The crypto markets live and die on liquidity, yet few people see how bids and asks become price. Kairon Labs, founded in 2018 by Jens Willemen (CEO) and Mathias Beke (CTO), builds systems that quote, fill, and hedge across venues. Willemen leads the business and client side, while Beke focuses on proprietary trading systems and algorithms. Today, we go behind the order book to see who actually moves the coins.

\ Ishan Pandey: Hi Jens, it’s great to have you on our “Behind the Startup” series. Let’s start with your journey. What first drew you into crypto and what led you to co-found Kairon Labs in 2018?

\ Jens Willemen: We started Kairon Labs after seeing an obvious gap: projects needed transparent, professional liquidity so real users could transact with tight spreads and reliable depth. Mathias and I had been close friends for years; in 2017–2018, we bootstrapped the company, kept it profitable from day one, and built around a simple ethos: do things correctly, legitimately, and sustainably, with clear client communication. That combination of self-custody values and execution discipline remains the foundation of how we operate today.

\ Ishan Pandey: With global market-abuse rules tightening and surveillance becoming standard, in plain terms, how do you define ethical market making, what practices are in, what’s out, and which internal controls and client disclosures are required as per industry standards?

\n Jens Willemen: For us, ethical market making means fair, responsible liquidity that protects market integrity: no wash trading, no conflicts of interest, and a bias toward transparency. We’ve stated publicly that our goal is founder- and project-centric liquidity that builds trust; “trust is liquidity” underpins our brand and risk posture.

\ Ishan Pandey: Because founders need apples-to-apples comparisons between offers, could you walk us through the commercial model, retainers, performance fees, risk-sharing and how you align incentives with founders, avoid conflicts with venues and differentiate with competitors?

\n Jens Willemen: We support both structures —a straightforward retainer and a loan-based model —and our job is to educate founders on the trade-offs so they can choose what fits their treasury, timeline, and risk tolerance.

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• Retainer: simple budgeting, cleaner governance, and strong independence from venues; you keep control while we’re measured on execution quality (spread, depth, uptime), not vanity volume.  

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• Loan model: reduces upfront cash needs and can jump-start liquidity, but comes with covenants/repayment terms and potential alignment questions you should weigh carefully. We walk teams through those pros/cons transparently. For context, we also publish comparisons of market-making models and why neutrality matters for fair price discovery.

\ Ishan Pandey: Since raw volume can mask poor execution quality, what does “good liquidity” look like in numbers? Which weekly KPIs should teams track (spreads, top-of-book depth, slippage, adverse selection) and how do you surface these in the client dashboard?

\n Jens Willemen: We define “good liquidity” as tight (spread), resilient (depth), and consistent (execution/impact). Concretely, we monitor and report:

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• Order-book depth at key bands;

• Bid-ask spread as % of mid;

• Execution quality/slippage on standardized trade sizes.

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These are the same levers we teach publicly and the core of our weekly dashboards to founders.

\ Ishan Pandey: As venue microstructure drives strategy, how does your system differ for CEX order books versus AMM-based DEXs and what adaptations matter most as you work on Solana/Raydium?

\n Jens Willemen: On centralized exchanges (CEXs), we work on an order book: place/refresh bids and asks across multiple price levels, manage queue priority and tick size, and target measurable spread and depth so takers get consistent execution with minimal slippage. That’s the classic microstructure we educate founders on publicly.

\ On decentralized exchanges (DEXs), most venues use automated market makers (AMMs). Prices are set by pool balances (e.g., Uniswap’s x·y = k), trades pay protocol fees into the pool, and there’s no native limit-order book. The operational levers are range/fee placement and re-centring to manage inventory drift and impermanent loss; we pair that with cross-venue hedging/arbitrage between DEX and CEX when appropriate.

\ For context, Raydium on Solana is an AMM-based DEX (alongside Uniswap, Curve, Balancer, etc.), so the same AMM principles apply there, just optimized for that chain’s tooling and throughput.

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• Bottom line: CEX = quote management (order books, spread/depth/uptime). DEX = range management (pools, fees, re-centring) with hedging across venues to keep prices aligned. \n

Ishan Pandey: Given the lessons from 2022 exchange failures, how do you manage inventory and counterparty exposure across many venues (capital segregation, limits, cross-exchange hedging), and what changed in your playbook after FTX?

\ Jens Willemen: Our published stance is to treat regulatory and operational clarity as a competitive edge: audit-ready data, integrity-first execution (no spoofing/wash trading), and classification-aware models aligned with MiCA. We combine that with a risk-management program that emphasizes market-risk tooling and ongoing work on counterparty/credit processes, all with a “compliance builds confidence” mindset. We also educate on real exchange/protocol risks in our market updates.

\ Ishan Pandey: Since token launch outcomes hinge on fit and planning, how do you decide which projects to work with (tokenomics, unlocks, liquidity budget)? What’s your first-90-days plan for a new token, when do extra listings help versus fragment liquidity and where do you intentionally differ from peers versus where standardization is healthy?

\ Jens Willemen: We select teams that treat liquidity as user experience: sound tokenomics, realistic budgets, compliance posture, and a plan for organic demand. The first 90 days focus on (1) pre-launch calibration and venue mix, (2) day-one stabilization with spread/depth baselines, and (3) capital-efficiency optimization with measured venue expansion. Our public checklist stresses ethical liquidity practices and structured order-book building; we also explain why strategies must be tailored per venue/pair, a point we’ve addressed repeatedly. \n

Ishan Pandey: Finally, for founders choosing a market maker for the first time: what’s your practical advice, and what’s the one question they should ask that almost nobody asks?

\ Jens Willemen: Ask any market maker to define the KPIs they’ll report (spread, depth, slippage) and to show you their written policies on ethics and conflicts. Also, ask how they stay neutral relative to exchange-run programs and why that matters for your token. Our articles clearly articulate our core principles: independence, transparency, and measurable execution serve as the foundation of our approach.

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:::tip This author is an independent contributor publishing via our business blogging program. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYO

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