Study finds almost no crypto protocols disclose market-maker terms

A review of over 150 crypto protocols finds fewer than 1% disclose market-making arrangements, revealing a major transparency gap in token trading structures.

A review of more than 150 major crypto protocols shows that disclosure of market-making arrangements is almost nonexistent, despite their central role in token trading.

The research, conducted by crypto advisory company Novora, found that fewer than 1% of protocols disclose any terms related to market makers. Across the full dataset, only one protocol, decentralized liquidity platform Meteora, was found to have publicly disclosed details of its market-making arrangements, citing the project’s 2025 Annual Token Holder Report.

The study covered leading sectors, including decentralized exchanges, lending platforms, perpetual futures, layer-1 and layer-2 networks, bridges and centralized exchange tokens, with protocols ranging in size from roughly $40 million to $45 billion in fully diluted valuation.

Novora said the protocols were assessed using a binary transparency framework covering disclosure practices and third-party data coverage, with checks against public sources including Artemis, Token Terminal, Dune, DefiLlama and Blockworks Research.

“This is the single most consequential transparency gap in the industry,” Novora founder Connor King wrote on X, saying that such material agreements are routinely disclosed in traditional markets. “In crypto, every market participant operates without this information,” he added.

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The finding points to a broader investor relations (IR) gap in crypto. Novora said 91% of the protocols it reviewed generated trackable revenue, but only 18% published quarterly updates and just 8% issued token holder reports, suggesting the data exists but is rarely packaged into structured investor communication.

At the same time, third-party analytics infrastructure has matured, with coverage rates exceeding 85% across major platforms, suggesting the underlying data is widely accessible but rarely formalized in reporting.

Sector-level breakdowns show uneven transparency. Perpetual futures protocols and decentralized exchanges tend to lead on disclosure and value accrual mechanisms, while L1 and infrastructure projects lag despite larger market capitalizations.

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Opaque market-maker arrangements have long fueled scrutiny in crypto, especially around token loan structures that critics say can create incentives to dump borrowed tokens into the market. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has even previously charged so-called crypto market makers with price manipulation.

As Cointelegraph reported, some market-maker arrangements are poorly structured and can quickly turn harmful. One widely used arrangement, the “loan option model,” involves projects lending tokens to market makers who then deploy them for liquidity provision and trading activity, often tied to listing agreements.

In practice, critics say this structure can create strong incentives to sell borrowed tokens into the market, triggering price declines that benefit the market maker while leaving early-stage projects with weakened liquidity and damaged token performance.

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Source: CoinTelegraph