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Depeg FDUSD: Wintermute's $3 million coup
By Davide Grammatica
Market maker Wintermute got its hands on $3 million by exploiting an arbitrage opportunity arising from the recent depeg of FDUSD
The FDUSD case, and Wintermute's move
The recent de-pegging of the stablecoin FDUSD kept the crypto community on tenterhooks for many hours. It followed public accusations by Justin Sun, founder of Tron, against the issuer First Digital, which was deemed insolvent, and all this led the stablecoin to drop to $0.87. First Digital promptly denied the accusations, but by then the damage had been done.
However, out of big problems, especially in the crypto world, very often great opportunities arise, and the market maker Wintermute wasted no time.
As reported by the on-chain analysis company Lookonchain, Wintermute bought FDUSD for over $75 million, promptly redeeming them at their nominal value and making an (estimated) profit of about $3 million.
The bet was on the reacquisition of FDUSD, which took place today after First Digital rejected the accusations. According to the company, the stablecoin had always been fully supported and redeemable, while Sun’s claims were totally “unfounded”.
Since $FDUSD depegged, #Wintermute has transferred 75M $FDUSD to First Digital Labs.
They likely bought $FDUSD at a discount during the depeg and redeemed it 1:1 through First Digital—making a solid profit.https://t.co/6WZdfs65vkhttps://t.co/vyLDgzbynX pic.twitter.com/91Pg6GcKAN
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) April 3, 2025
When volatility creates opportunities
However, Wintermute’s actions have also rekindled discussions around the role of market makers in volatile conditions, and in particular their ability to profit from sharp price movements. And the last few months seem to be the ideal terrain for players of this kind, as demonstrated by the latest economic developments in the USA or the DeepSeek case.
In any case, First Digital is still assigned a rating of “limited” stability. From this point of view, S&P Global Ratings has in the past underlined several weaknesses of the token in areas such as governance, transparency, liquidity and regulatory supervision.
