Wall Street-Style Dark Pools Arrive in the Crypto Markets | Markets Outlook

Summary

Markets Outlook: Wall Street-Style Dark Pools Arrive in the Crypto Markets

Podcast: Markets Outlook
Host: CoinDesk
Episode: Wall Street-Style Dark Pools Arrive in the Crypto Markets
Date: November 14, 2025
Guests: Dennis Dariotis (Founder & CEO, GoQuant), Jen Senasi (Host), Andy Baer (Co-host)

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the arrival and implications of Wall Street-style dark pools in the cryptocurrency market. With Bitcoin smashing through the $100,000 barrier, the panel explores both the current market climate and a new trading infrastructure innovation—GoDark, a crypto dark pool platform from GoQuant. Guest Dennis Dariotis provides insight into institutional crypto trading, the need for hidden liquidity venues, and how established traditional finance mechanisms are being adapted for the evolving crypto ecosystem.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Crypto Market Update & Institutional Maturity

• Bitcoin Breaks $100k:
  • The episode opens on Bitcoin reaching the significant $100,000 price point, sparking discussions about end-of-year bullishness and comparisons to previous highs.
  • Dennis Dariotis attributes the move to, “a cooling off period after the liquidation events about a month ago and...expectations with the Fed and geopolitical tensions.” ([01:52])
• Market Correlations:
  • Panelists note risk-off sentiment across markets, drawing parallels between equities’ poor performance and moves in crypto.
  • Dariotis observes: “All assets are correlated...But...the crypto market as a whole has gotten to a much larger point of maturity.” ([02:58])
• Industry Evolution:
  • The group discusses how crypto market participants, especially institutions, have become more resilient. Regulatory advances have buoyed optimism and acceptance in the asset class.

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2. GoQuant and Institutional Liquidity Infrastructure

• GoQuant’s Mission:
  • Dennis Dariotis founded GoQuant at age 17; it now offers market data, trading, risk management, and, notably, dark pools and credit platforms.
  • “We’re really looking to be at the center of this facilitation of institutional liquidity...across that entire life cycle of the trade.” ([04:00])
  • The aim: Seamless, efficient, and performance-focused infrastructure for institutions, particularly given crypto’s fragmented liquidity landscape.

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3. Demystifying Dark Pools for Crypto

• What Is a Dark Pool?
  • Dark pools are non-public trading venues where large buy/sell orders can be executed without broadcasting intentions to the entire market.
    • Dariotis:
      • “On dark pools, it’s more of an OTC-like relationship where the order books are entirely concealed and the counterparties who are trading don’t know which counterparty is on the other side...” ([06:56])
      • “It facilitates the reduction of market impact for trades, it reduces information leakage...and it doesn’t allow institutions to tip their hand to the market.”
• Contrast With Lit Exchanges:
  • Public order books (on Binance, NYSE, etc.) versus hidden order books in dark pools.
  • On-chain transactions are transparent and sometimes counterproductive for institutions wishing to execute large block trades discreetly.
• GoDark Collaboration:
  • Built in partnership with notable custodians and liquidity providers (Copper, GSR), GoDark marries institutional-grade custody with advanced matching and trading for crypto.

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4. Adoption & Demand for Dark Pools in Crypto

• Industry Familiarity:
  • Most institutional users and counterparties GoQuant approached were already comfortable with dark pools from equity markets.
  • “Over half of US equities volume is done in dark pools…for that reason of market impact, information leakage, and tipping firms’ hand to the market.” ([09:37])
  • Some firms mistakenly conflated on-chain DEX privacy features with genuine dark pools; Dariotis clarifies these are fundamentally different.
• Why Institutions Want Crypto Dark Pools:
  • Existing crypto market fragmentation and on-chain transparency actually work against large institutions; dark pools offer privacy and efficiency akin to what they use in equities.

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5. Crypto Dark Pools: Implications and Mechanics

• Trade Transparency & Reporting:
  • In equities, dark pool trades are eventually reported (“printed on the tape”); in crypto, GoDark transactions may never show up in centralized exchange volumes.
    • Andy Baer: “If a transaction happens in Godark, it doesn’t necessarily...print on that centralized exchange. So that volume isn’t seen, right?” ([10:45])
  • Dariotis: “There is a possibility of that...efficiency of information will be arbitraged out a lot slower than it would have on any other lit exchange.” ([11:48])
    • This may result in more “latent” spot volume that market data providers and other exchanges are oblivious to.
• Instrument Coverage and Future Expansion:
  • Currently, GoDark covers ~25 spot tokens, with plans to add perpetuals, futures, and options as use and interest scales up.
    • “The possibilities are truly endless, especially when pairing together institutional grade custody and...quality liquidity providers.” ([12:46])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Correlations and Market Resilience:
  • “I do think...the crypto market as a whole has gotten to a much larger point of maturity where some assets are not entirely correlated from each other…” — Dennis Dariotis ([02:58])
• On the Impact of Dark Pools:
  • “If a very large firm were to acquire or sell a very large inventory of assets...on a dark pool, this wouldn’t happen nearly to the extent that it would on lit exchanges because the transaction would be concealed from the market.” — Dennis Dariotis ([06:56])
• Dark Pools’ Prevalence in Equities:
  • “Over half of US equities volume is done in dark pools.” — Dennis Dariotis ([09:37])
• On Concealed Crypto Volume:
  • “That efficiency of information will be arbitraged out a lot slower than it would have on any other lit exchange.” — Dennis Dariotis ([11:48])
• On Expansion:
  • “We see [token coverage] evolving into perpetual futures, calendar futures, options, and other instruments. The possibilities are truly endless…” — Dennis Dariotis ([12:46])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:40–03:43] – Bitcoin’s $100K milestone and broader market correlations
• [04:00–05:49] – GoQuant’s institutional infrastructure role
• [06:56–08:58] – What are dark pools and why do institutions need them?
• [09:37–10:45] – Industry familiarity and demand for dark pools in crypto
• [10:45–12:25] – Concealed volume, trading implications, and market transparency
• [12:46–13:26] – Current dark pool coverage and plans for the future

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Conclusion

This episode provides a deep dive into the role and rise of dark pools within crypto, demystifying the concept and highlighting their parallels with Wall Street. Dariotis underscores the growing sophistication and institutionalization of crypto markets, while also revealing how trading infrastructure is evolving to meet new privacy and liquidity needs. GoDark, as one of the first purpose-built crypto dark pools, aims to shape the future of institutional digital asset trading—concealed, efficient, and ready for expansion into a broad suite of instruments.

Transcript

[A]

If a very large firm were to acquire or sell a very large inventory of assets. Now, that would spook the market. If it was all done on the blockchain, on a decentralized exchange, on a centralized venue but in a dark pool, this wouldn't happen nearly to the extent that it would on lit exchanges because the transaction would be concealed from the market.

[B]

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[A]

Hi Jen. Thank you for having me.

[B]

Thank you for joining us. We got to start out talking about what's happening in the markets today. Bitcoin has broken that psychological $100,000 level. Talk to me about what you're watching and how you're interpreting that.

[A]

Of course, so I mean of course it's a big event. Everyone, especially towards Q4 is having this end of year bullishness, expecting it to break the the 150 or 125 highs previously. But this is really a turn of events and I think a large part of this is due to a cooling off period after the liquidation events about a month ago and the other part could be due to some of the the expectations with the Fed and geopolitical.

[C]

Tensions, fair to say with equity markets behaving also quite poorly today that this is a general risk offing, not crypto specific. Although new crypto adopters tend to think of any kind of drawdown in crypto prices as being the end of the asset class, whereas in equities, everybody knows equities will still be here when the sun rises. Do you think the asset class has matured enough that people can think of this as a pullback and not abandon the idea of Bitcoin and growth crypto assets being successful over the long term?

[A]

Absolutely. I think at the end of the day, all assets are correlated. So whether you're trading a certain equity in another jurisdiction, ultimately that is going to have a certain correlation to Bitcoin and any other altcoins that exist. But that being said, I do think that the crypto market as a whole has gotten to a much larger point of maturity where some assets are not entirely correlated from each other and the equity markets aren't always completely correlated with the crypto market. So I don't necessarily think that everyone in the market is going to be abandoning crypto, especially with the recent regulatory advancements with the crypto optimism that exists amongst the institutions.

[B]

All right, we're talking about Goquant now, and I know you founded this company at just 17 years old. Now you're launching Godark. This is backed by giants like Copper and gsr. Let's level set, talk to us a little bit about Goquant and then we'll get to Godark.

[A]

Sure. So Goquant is a trading infrastructure provider. So we provide market data, trade execution systems, risk portfolio management systems, and more recently, dark pools and credit platforms. So ultimately we're really looking to be at the center of this facilitation of institutional liquidity. So essentially what that means is delivering services and products across that entire life cycle of the trade. So going from market data, pre trade, actually the trading post trade risk, and reporting and doing that entire life cycle effectively and performatively is something that is very apparent to have a need for in the crypto space, especially with this fragmentation of liquidity. So as we all know, there are the same symbols, the same instruments available to trade across OTC desks, centralized exchanges, decentralized exchanges, and then in the traditional markets with these crypto ETFs and treasury companies. But in terms of piecing it all together in one efficient manner, especially from an institutional perspective, that's where it becomes even more important to get better execution than what the current status quo is.

[B]

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[A]

Of course. So drawing contrast to public, what are called lit exchanges. So the New York stock exchange, the NASDAQ, Binance, OkX, all these exchanges have one thing in common, which is that the order books and the actual trades that are filled are all public. So they're available with public market data streams, and even once they're actually transacted, they're public via the trades feeds. And in the case of decentralized exchanges, they're all visible on chain. Now those are all the parallels in the lit exchanges where all the trades are visible on dark pools. It's more of an OTC like relationship where the order books are entirely concealed and the counterparties who are trading don't know which counterparty is on the other side of that transaction. And this is really good from an institutional perspective because it facilitates the reduction of market impact for trades, it reduces information leakage on performance strategies, and it doesn't allow institutions to tip their hand to the market. Now an example of this is if a very large firm were to acquire or sell a very large inventory of assets. Now that would spook the market. If it was all done on the blockchain, on a decentralized exchange, on a centralized venue, but in a dark pool, this wouldn't happen nearly to the extent that it would on lit exchanges because the transaction would be concealed from the market. So essentially what we've done here by building GodArk is we've partnered with one of the best custodians in the space, one of the best liquidity providers in the digital asset space and with Go quantity basically built tech platform and the tech layer to piece all this together.

[C]

So the dark pools are despite the name, which almost seems to want to attract negative attention. I don't know, maybe they could have been named better because of how useful they are for institutional trading in asset classes like equities. When you were developing this, did you find that the users you were trying to pursue or the partners you were trying to pursue were familiar users of let's say equity dark pools and they were saying wouldn't it be great if we had one of these in crypto? Or did you have to sort of unveil the whole value proposition for people who may not have had equity dark pool trading experience?

[A]

The firms we've been discussing with have been entirely used to the fact of dark pools being existent in the equity markets and other traditional markets. And a lot of firms might not know this, or especially some of the retail grad might not be aware that over half of US equities volume is done in dark pools. And that is for that reason of market impact information leakage and tipping firms hand to the market. So this is, this is apparent in equity markets and to our client base. So this was a very high demand to our user base to basically say well why isn't there an institutional dark pool in the crypto markets? And a lot of firms were affiliating dark pools with decentralized exchanges in a way. But that is not entirely the same product at all because a lot of these on chain transactions are completely transparent and work against the interests of those institutions, especially while executing these large block trades.

[C]

So help tease out one kind of maybe potentially nerdy detail here. Even in equity dark pools, even, even if liquidity is discovered and exchanged inside a pool, that transaction is still going to be put up on the tape, right? That's going to be recognized in the consolidated volume of equities trading at some point, right? It's going to have to cross somewhere and be recorded in a godark dark pool. If somebody is looking at all the volume on a certain name across centralized exchanges, but a transaction happens in GodArk, it doesn't necessarily, there's no regulatory requirement or conventional requirement for it to print on that centralized exchange. So that volume actually isn't seen, right, isn't recorded by those who are kind of like some of our businesses that are Recording centralized exchanges. So does this suggest that there may be more and more latent spot volume happening in crypto much broader than what's seen on centralized exchanges there?

[A]

There definitely is a possibility of that. And because of this, this, this price discrepancy between what may exist in a dark pool versus a transparent lit venue, that efficiency of information will be arbitraged out a lot slower than it would have on any other lit exchange. So from an institutional perspective, that does provide more opportunity for trading the arbitrage out of these markets, but it is necessary to really execute these large block trades in a, in an efficient manner.

[C]

Yeah, no, that's super important. And then institutions will find that they have to find a way to have access to these pools that are large, or else they not only miss the information, but they'll miss the liquidity. How broad is the coverage in dark pool right now? How many tokens do you get through and what, where do you see that changing over the next year?

[A]

Currently it's, the coverage is about 25 spot tokens, but that will be evolving over the next year as volumes increase and counterparties are onboarded. So we see that evolving into perpetual futures calendar, futures options and other instruments. And the possibilities are truly endless, especially when pairing together institutional grade custody and really quality liquidity providers. So because this is a very unique venue in crypto that has not been done before, it's going to be an area where we can attract a lot of interest and start to list more, more instruments to trade.

[B]

Dennis, thank you so much for joining Andy and I. It was a pleasure having you on the show.

[A]

Thank you both.

[C]

Thank.