Most people don’t think about market makers. They just notice when a price jumps too fast or when an order doesn’t fill where they expected. Liquidity feels invisible until it isn’t. I’ve learned that the hard way, staring at an order book that looked deep on the surface but thinned out the second volatility picked up.
That’s why I keep coming back to infrastructure when people talk about Fogo. Not the branding. The plumbing. Market-making, at its core, is about constantly updating bids and asks so traders can move in and out without friction. But updating quotes only works if the system lets you do it without delay. If confirmation takes too long, you’re exposed. You quote one price, the market moves, and suddenly you’re the one taking the loss.
What makes Fogo interesting isn’t just that it aims to be fast. It’s the idea that finality, the moment a trade is truly settled and happens quickly enough that market makers don’t need to overcompensate with wide spreads. A spread, that small gap between buy and sell, is basically a cushion for risk. Reduce the risk, and in theory the cushion shrinks.
Still, speed cuts both ways. Automation thrives in low-latency systems. Humans don’t. If everything becomes a race measured in milliseconds, smaller participants may struggle to compete. And dashboards, rankings, visible liquidity metrics, especially on places like Binance Square, quietly shape behavior. When performance is tracked publicly, liquidity becomes a reputation game.
Maybe that’s the shift. Not louder marketing or bigger incentives, but a system where liquidity is measured, compared, and earned in plain view. If Fogo can make that sustainable rather than extractive, market-making might start to look less like privilege and more like discipline.