Paving the Way: Andrei Grachev, Managing Partner, DWF Labs Grachev is on a mission to cement DWF Labs as a prime crypto enabler in the UAE and beyond.
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In the world as we know it today, there are perhaps two broad categories of people when it comes to the cryptocurrency space: those who see its potential and value; and those who still harbor qualms about its longevity and promises. When Andrei Grachev founded DWF Labs, a UAE-headquartered crypto market maker and Web3 investment firm, in 2022, he inadvertently decided to create something of a bridge between both groups of people. "People always say that crypto is volatile, but beyond the volatility, we see the technology that is changing the world," he says. "For example, Bitcoin (BTC) is becoming the digital gold, a new form of assets that are very liquid, borderless, transferable and not under anyone's control. And there are a lot of such artefacts on the market- decentralized finance (DeFi), memecoins, stablecoins, real-world assets (RWAs) and many others financial instruments that are wrapped in a new technology. This technology will change traditional finance, similar to how digital forms of trading changed the world when price feeds had been delivered by couriers that spent days going from one city to another. More and more people are starting to understand this, especially after acceptance of BTC from the leading countries and funds. That is why we are thinking about the future."
Operating globally, DWF Labs also has offices in Switzerland, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. On December 2, 2024, Grachev -DWF Labs' Managing Partner- announced via social media platform X that the company was officially shifting its headquarters to the UAE's capital city of Abu Dhabi "in order to build a strong presence in the Middle East and run more RWA and financial services there." At the heart of the brand has been a very simple sentiment: to be both a launchpad and safety net for crypto businesses and startups. "Crypto is a growing market that allows talented people to build innovative products with a very high potential upside," Grachev says. "It is very liquid and has a very quick market response. Instead of spending years to prove your idea, you need to first build it and we see the market reacting almost immediately. We like that, and we are more than happy to support such innovations and entrepreneurs to help them build, scale and succeed through investments and our end-to-end ecosystem support."
How DWF Labs has set out to achieve this mission is via a four-pronged approach: market making, over-the-counter (OTC) trading (known as DWF Liquid Markets), ventures investments (known as DWF Ventures), as well as investments on secondary markets. For the uninitiated, a market maker is typically an entity or individual that provides liquidity to a given financial market by actively buying and selling assets. At DWF Labs, for starters, this is done by offering customized liquidity provisioning and financial support strategy that combines a data-driven approach with a given client's needs. "DWF Labs has undertaken several major initiatives, particularly in the UAE and the broader Middle East, to support liquidity and anchor the market," Grachev notes. "These include operating validator nodes, contributing to total value locked (TVL), and enhancing liquidity for tokens. In particular, we don't see any bottlenecks in the region and we operate in communication with the regulators in order to realise regional crypto potential through active work, strategic partnerships and advocacy."
DWF Labs has been trusted by over 700 blockchain companies, platforms, and institutions. It provides liquidity for over a quarter of the 100 largest crypto projects, and its reach spans the entire crypto ecosystem. Source: BNC Publishing
DWF Labs also ensures liquidity to its partners by integrating with over 60 decentralized and centralized venues. But Grachev notes that being a market maker in the conventional sense alone was never going to be enough to fulfil the brand's vision. "The market making business is only about liquidity provision and maintaining the quality of assets' market on crypto exchanges, but project founders need more than that," he says. "This is why we have launched new initiatives that nobody else has done before, such as liquid investments, project and business development support in exchange for tokens. In 2022 other companies didn't understand it, but in 2023 they started realizing that we are real competition, and now in 2024, we are practically blazing the trails and leading the way in this business. I am really proud of that."
Intertwined with DWF Labs' liquidity offering endeavors is its role as a crypto OTC trading as well as options trading platform. Indeed, with DWF Liquidity Markets, clients can trade OTC on demand at any given time anywhere in the world, thereby opening up opportunities to tap into diverse liquidity sources. On the other hand, by trading spot and derivatives markets on over 60 top global exchanges, it has become one of the world's largest high-frequency cryptocurrency trading entities. "When we joined the market, we saw that there was a strong market demand for these services, that's why we chose these verticals," Grachev adds. "By diversifying operations, we can support crypto projects across various stages of maturity, strengthening our position to be a full-service player in the crypto industry. We also allocate some percentage of our revenue to research and development (R&D), and constantly explore new opportunities."
DWF Labs fourth vertical is, of course, the aforementioned DWF Ventures - a venture capital (VC) arm that aims to "invest in revolutionary innovations and back Web3's trailblazing founders." Now, from the other already discussed verticals, Grachev's vision to empower crypto entrepreneurs is evident. But through the creation of DWF Ventures, the founder has been able to tap into a wide array of business ideas and pools of talent. "In 2023, we had our first meeting with DMCC, with intentions to expand in the MENA region," Grachev recalls. "Since then, we've established a partnership to offer a US$5 million growth platform for Web3 and blockchain businesses at the DMCC Crypto Centre. The commitment included the establishment of the DWF Ventures Studio, which will support nascent web3 and blockchain businesses using the DMCC Crypto Centre and Dubai as a hub from which they can scale their operations locally, regionally and globally. Since then, we've also renewed this agreement. On top of strategic partnerships like these, we continue to invest heavily, investing a few hundred million US dollars in over 400+ projects within 16 months of its establishment. We have also grown the portfolio to over 900 Web3 projects by focusing on those that have great leaders and think about the long term results and work hard to achieve that."
Here, Grachev acknowledges that while DWF Labs' strategies have certainly been successful on their own, has also been a collective effort that has aided the entity in leaving an indelible mark on the market. "When it comes to our ecosystem support, we have a large network of portfolio projects, companies, friends and partners that present avenues for collaborations, growth and opportunities for our new clients," he adds. "From influencers and go-to-market experts to hackathons and retail products that can boost acceptance and usage of certain crypto projects, we have it all. We also cover the foundational work that will eventually help our industry grow as a whole in the long-term. For example, we support certain protocols by running validator nodes or contributing liquidity on-chain. We've also ventured into the institutional space by cooperating with leading universities and governments in order to help them to raise awareness about the crypto market and together, work together to make the decisions that will help the industry to grow."
Apart from crypto liquidity provision, market making and VC activities, DWF Labs has also worked towards being a reliable partner to Web3 builders by assisting them with exchange listings, facilitating partnerships, and helping our projects to raise funds. Source: BNC Publishing
Grachev and his team have, in fact, already taken certain steps to ensure this next phase of growth is set in motion. "A big thing that we are working on is Falcon Finance, a multi-collaterized yield-bearing stablecoin that will allow institution investors, companies and normal users to get additional cash for investments and trading without selling their assets, and also get additional yield which is coming from our carefully engineered financial strategies," Grachev reveals. "To support regulatory alignment [in the UAE], we are actively engaging with standards bodies such as Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA), Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), and Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC), which will help us develop compliant frameworks and advance Web3 adoption. Finally, our efforts in tokenization extend beyond individual assets to entire banking structures, combining regulatory licensing and advanced technology to support a fully tokenized financial ecosystem. We believe these steps will position DWF Labs as a key cornerstone in Web3, fostering stability and sustainable growth within the digital asset and, of course, traditional finance as well."
Indeed, Grachev and DWF Labs are not restricting themselves to just the crypto market. "Regarding traditional finance, we are definitely looking forward to expanding our operations into it, because the markets are huge and much larger than crypto," he notes. "Our plan for the following one to two years is to acquire several banks in different regions and build products that will allow everyone to leverage all the best of both the crypto and traditional finance worlds."
Adopting such a mindset has meant that the DWF Labs team has increasingly been lauded by peers and industry leaders. "Last year, we were recognized as the Lead Crypto Investor by Binance Research [the market analysis and insights arm of popular cryptocurrency exchange Binance]," Grachev shares. "Soon after, we were also awarded the Best Liquidity Provider Award by Bybit [a UAE-based cryptocurrency derivatives exchange]. We are so thankful for the industry recognition and we look forward to achieving greater things in the future. We remain focused to deliver as much value as possible to our clients and this can be evidenced by our achievements in this industry."
According to Grachev, in reaching such milestones, it has been paramount for him to create a team that deeply aligns with continuing the vision he has curated for DWF Labs. "We are hard workers and businessmen- our working schedule is mostly with no weekends, holidays and working hours are from early morning to late evening," he reveals. "Our passion is to be the best and do our best. We carefully hire people that share this mindset and give them whatever they need to express themselves in this manner. You see, we decided to build our company in the crypto market, because we saw a lot of opportunities and inefficiencies that could be solved by our efforts. This means that there was a vast ocean for us to explore in terms of our business. Time has flown by and now looking back, we see that we've definitely made the right decision!"
As such, it would perhaps only be right to gain some parting words of advice from Grachev. "My advice is simple: pay attention to trends," he declares. "Remember that every market has its cycles and our mission, as entrepreneurs, is to make sure that our business has a sustainable model that can survive during hard times, be profitable during good times and be able to scale sustainably."
Dubai-based free zone authority DMCC Crypto Centre, a crypto hub within the DMCC Free Zone in Dubai, partnered with DWF Labs in 2023 to attract blockchain and Web3 companies to the UAE and MENA region. They also were one of the partners for a joint hackathon with DMCC and Bybit. Source: BNC Publishing
'TREP TALK: Andrei Grachev on the trends that will ensure a well-paced growth of the crypto industry
Institutional crypto "It is ETFs, tokenized RWA and tokenization platforms, yield bearing stablecoins and products, money markets, treasury bills, tradefi + web3 solutions. This is a growing sector. As the convergence of traditional finance and crypto strengthens,, the larger this vertical will become."
Projects and tokens with utility "You can call it like R&D of the crypto space. They are constantly emerging and disappearing with ideas, which constantly launch the starts of the markets."
Memes "A cultural phenomenon of the crypto industry which brings a lot of fun. It belongs to the category of high risk, high return sort of products. Fairly speaking - this vertical is the best marketing and retail users onboarding solution for certain chains and for the industry in general."
