Gaming
Why the World’s Deepest Liquidity Pools Form Around the Most Regulated Venues
The stock market, FX, and derivative markets are all vastly different. However, they all share a common thread that makes them attractive for institutional and retail investors alike. These markets have deep liquidity and mature market frameworks. The reason? They are tightly regulated, which in turns attracts the capital that deepens the liquidity available.
The rules are clear and consistently applied, so big capital holders feel confident enough to make moves. Crypto markets are different, but that difference is quickly diminishing. Money goes where investors feel secure and where the rules are transparent and specific.
Liquidity Concentration as a Sign of Market Maturity
Liquidity is all about being able to match buyers and sellers quickly and cheaply. This lets retail buyers get $50 worth of Bitcoin on a Tuesday, and also lets an institutional player sell $50 million worth on the same day. The more mature and deep a liquidity pool is, the better equipped it is to handle large buy and sell orders without stumbling or creating slippage. Liquidity goes beyond just order volume. A mature market can handle stress and pressure.
A natural outcome of market maturation is the gradual concentration of liquidity. While this may appear counterintuitive, it is a function of how efficient markets form. Consider a fragmented market made up of many small sellers offering modest amounts of an asset and a single buyer seeking to transact at scale. In such an environment, liquidity is quickly exhausted, prices become unstable, and execution becomes inefficient. This is hardly the conditions required for a reliable market. A well-functioning liquidity pool, according to CME Group, is “one where a large volume of transactions can be executed without substantial impact on the price.”
Binance’s Liquidity Scale in a Global Context
For an example on how this plays out at scale in the crypto markets let’s take a look at Binance. Crypto markets are high-velocity, meaning value changes hands quickly. Since the platform launched, their all-time trading volume is in excess of $145 trillion per Cointelegraph. To put some context to that number, the global GDP is estimated by the World Bank to be around $110 trillion. This means the company is handling trading volumes that are on-par with national financial systems.
Binance Co-CEO Richard Teng recently commented on this scale during the WEF in Davos, “As we move into 2026, I am pleased to share that we have continued to grow from strength to strength. On the user front, we crossed 300 million users globally last month. That roughly translates to 1 out of every 20 adults in the world is using the Binance platform for investing.”
Teng continued, “Binance remained a primary venue for global crypto liquidity, with $34 trillion traded on the platform in 2025 and spot volume exceeding $7.1 trillion, about a 20% increase in average daily trading volume across all products. All-time traded volume reached $145 trillion across all products—more than the annual global GDP.”
According to CoinGecko data shared by Wu Blockchain, Binance’s spot trading volume rose from $365B in December 2025 to $409B in January 2026, marking a +12.1% month-over-month increase. This is nearly 5X larger than the next exchange.
Why Compliance Attracts Professional Capital
A 2026 report from PwC notes that “Institutional involvement has crossed the point of reversibility.” Blockchain technologies are being used behind the scenes to move large volumes of value. These moves are so deeply embedded in the fabric of the world’s financial infrastructure that trying to remove them could be costly. Financial markets are using these technologies already, so the regulators catching up has become essential.
It’s also essential to understand how professional capital views risk. Smaller players will focus on upsides and first-move advantages, but the professionals care first about legal risk which is non-negotiable. When doing business in any market, professional capital must know that what they are doing is permitted (and not in a gray area), who is overseeing it, and what are the risks or likelihoods of sudden rule changes.
Professional capital isn’t cautious by choice, but instead by the fact that they answer to auditors, regulators, company boards, and their own fiduciary responsibilities. Compliance means their need for caution has been fulfilled.
Market Integrity as a Competitive Moat
Integrity in crypto markets is all about predictability from market participants. We know there are no front runners or hidden fees because we can see the fee schedule and order book live. Market makers and professional capital only use markets with integrity because it makes things predictable and ensures everyone is following the same rules.
Market integrity thus acts as a defensive layer that keeps dishonest players from attracting professional capital. Integrity is made up of three parts: surveillance, controls, and transparency. IOSCO formalizes these, writing in a report that regulators must verify entities like crypto exchanges “for the monitoring, surveillance and supervision of the exchange or trading system and its members or participants to ensure fairness, efficiency, transparency and investor protection, as well as compliance with securities legislation.”
Liquidity as the Ultimate Vote of Confidence
What this all tells us is fairly simple. Liquidity goes where investors are confident. Professional capital has more needs than retail capital. When their needs are met, they vote with their resources by deploying value into pools they trust the most. That trust comes from regulation, market integrity, and above all, confidence in the pool itself.
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Gaming
MTG gaming chief Benninghoff joins NODWIN board as esports firm primes for IPO
The Gurugram-based esports firm is pursuing a public listing, has returned to profitability and is growing revenues by 42 per cent
GURUGRAM: NODWIN Gaming is moving fast. The Gurugram-based gaming and esports company has launched a pre-IPO fundraising round, appointed UBS as lead adviser for both the round and a subsequent public listing, and landed a heavyweight board director, all in one go.
The new board member is Arnd Benninghoff, executive vice president of gaming at Stockholm-listed Modern Times Group (MTG), who has overseen the group’s strategic investments and portfolio growth since 2014. He is no stranger to building things: Benninghoff has founded and built fifteen companies, served as chief digital officer at ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG, managing director of SevenVentures, and chief executive of Holtzbrinck eLAB. He began his career as a journalist at Deutsche Presse Agentur and various TV networks, holds a Diplom-Kaufmann in business and administration from the University of Münster, and previously sat on the board of Edgeware AB.
The numbers back the ambition
NODWIN is not pitching a story without substance. The company has returned to EBITDA profitability and posted a 42 per cent year-on-year revenue surge, reaching $58.5m in the first nine months of FY2026. The pre-IPO round will combine a primary issuance to fund global expansion through organic growth and acquisitions, alongside a secondary sale to give existing shareholders some liquidity.
Akshat Rathee, co-founder and managing director of NODWIN Gaming, said Benninghoff understands “the entire lifecycle of the gaming and media ecosystem, from the boots-on-the-ground reality of building startups to the strategic complexity of managing multi-billion dollar global portfolios.”
Benninghoff, for his part, said the company “sits at the intersection of sports, entertainment, and technology, making it one of the most exciting players in the global gaming landscape today.”
A portfolio built for the global south
Founded in 2014 by Rathee and Gautam Virk, NODWIN has quietly assembled one of the more compelling esports portfolios outside the Western hemisphere. Its properties include DreamHack India and Comic Con India, and it recently acquired StarLadder, the Ukraine-based tournament organiser behind premier events in CS:GO and Dota 2. The company also serves as a long-term strategic marketing partner for the Evolution Championship Series (EVO), the world’s most prominent fighting game tournament, helping push it into new geographies.
Its geographic focus spans South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Backers include Nazara Technologies, KRAFTON, Sony Group Corporation, JetSynthesys, and the founders’ investment vehicle Good Game Investments.
What comes next
With UBS running the books, a board freshly reinforced with European media and gaming expertise, and revenue heading in the right direction, NODWIN is laying the groundwork deliberately. The esports industry has burned investors before with big promises and thin margins. NODWIN’s return to profitability, combined with a real portfolio of owned intellectual properties across gaming, music and youth culture, gives it a more credible runway than most. The IPO clock is now ticking.
