A persistent misconception still exists in the crypto industry: if a project has a token, the next mandatory step must be a CEX listing and the engagement of a market maker. This is often perceived as a logical growth milestone, almost a sign of project maturity. In practice, however, this decision is frequently the source of serious problems.
Working at Arckea as a market maker and collaborating with projects at various stages of development, we regularly encounter the same situation: founders come for market making far too early. Not because they actually need it, but because “everyone does it.”
A market maker is not a universal solution. It is a tool that only works when a market already exists. If there is no real market, market making does not produce economically sustainable results and instead creates false expectations -both within the team and across the community.
What a Market Maker Actually Does
Put simply, a market maker’s role is to maintain market functionality:
providing two-sided quotes, managing spreads, smoothing volatility, and reducing market imbalances. This involves working with order flow, order book depth, and supply–demand asymmetry.
However, a critical point is often overlooked: a market maker does not create demand. They do not bring users, generate investment interest, or “hold the price” at the project’s discretion. A market maker works with existing demand and attempts to make the market more resilient and predictable
Early Stage and Lack of Organic Demand
A typical scenario looks like this: an early-stage project has a token and a small community that believes in the idea. The community starts pushing for a CEX listing, viewing it as the “next level.” Founders, afraid of losing audience loyalty, begin to see listing and market making as mandatory steps.
In practice, this leads to the following outcomes:
– trading activity is minimal;
– order flow is one-sided;
– the order book is empty beyond the market maker’s quotes.
In such conditions, the market maker is supporting a market in which virtually no one is trading. Any attempt to widen spreads or reduce presence immediately exposes the lack of genuine demand.
Broken Tokenomics and Order Book Pressure
Another category of projects includes those with problematic tokenomics. Unlock schedules, vesting of early investors, uncontrolled emissions, and the absence of selling restrictions all create constant downward pressure on the market.
Under these conditions, the market maker faces a persistent one-sided flow of sell orders. The order book becomes saturated with offers, liquidity is drained, and any attempt at stabilization turns into direct price subsidization using the project’s own resources.
A market maker cannot compensate for poor token economics. If the fundamental market parameters are working against the project, market making merely postpones the inevitable while increasing losses.
The False Expectation of “Price Support”
One of the most dangerous assumptions market makers encounter is the expectation that their role is to hold or defend the price. At that point, market making ceases to be a market instrument and is instead perceived as a mechanism of control.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what market making is – and what it is not.
When a DEX and AMM Are Sufficient
For small and early-stage projects, starting with a DEX is often the more rational approach. Creating a liquidity pool via an AMM establishes a baseline market.
AMMs do not solve all problems, but they do honestly reflect real interest in the token. This allows a project to observe genuine demand before moving to centralized exchanges.
When a Market Maker Is Truly Needed
Market making becomes a justified and effective tool when a project already has an established market:
– multiple trading venues with arbitrage risk;
– CEX requirements for liquidity metrics and order book depth;
– a distributed ecosystem (CEX + DEX across different networks).
Market making is neither a starting option nor a marketing attribute. Based on Arckea’s experience, it becomes effective only in mature markets – where sustainable demand already exists, trading activity is present, and the objective is to improve overall market quality rather than artificially create it. Learn More about Arckea market-maker
