According to CoinDesk, a public quarrel erupted between Andrei Grachev, founder of DWF Labs, and representatives from market-making giants GSR and Wintermute. The dispute began when Grachev posted a photo of himself with competitors on Elon Musk's X platform, formerly known as Twitter. In response, Cristian Gil, co-founder of GSR, stated that Grachev had no business being on the panel and that it was insulting for GSR, crypto exchange OKX, and Wintermute to be in the same room as DWF. Evgeny Gaevoy, CEO of Wintermute, liked Gil's post, leading to further exchanges between the parties.

DWF Labs emerged earlier this year as a controversial presence in the crypto market-making space, with debates surrounding whether the company was engaging in venture capital investing or acting more like an over-the-counter trading desk. The public quarrel between Grachev and the market-making giants raises questions about maturity levels in the crypto industry, especially as large Wall Street firms make their boldest moves yet into the space, including bitcoin ETF applications from asset manager BlackRock. However, similar show-stopping battles have occurred in traditional finance, such as the heated exchange between author Michael Lewis and the president of the BATS Global Markets exchange in 2014.