Jump Trading hires Itô founders to run new AI compute trading desk
In brief
- Jump Trading hired Itô's entire founding team, co-founder Affaan said in an October 12 post.
- Itô's founders will launch and run a new compute trading desk at Jump.
- The desk will start with mid-market contracts mostly running 3 to 5 years, Crypto Briefing reported.
- About 30% of those contracts require upfront payments, Crypto Briefing reported.
What Itô does
Itô's specialty is trading access to computing power and AI inference capacity. Inference is the work an AI model does after it's trained (answering prompts, generating output).
The founders aren't new to this. They include co-founder Alejandro, they've got hands-on experience commercializing computational resources, and they previously built a platform aimed at helping buyers secure AI compute supply. Their background also covers credit products and supercomputing.
The contracts
According to Crypto Briefing, the desk will start with mid-market contracts that mostly run for 3 to 5 years. Contract sizes in that segment typically span tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars, with some reaching the low hundreds of millions. The outlet also reported that early trading activity shows about 30% of these contracts require upfront payments (meaning buyers in those deals are being asked to put cash down before the compute is delivered), though it didn't say where that figure came from.
Why Jump
A research summary of the announcement, cited by Crypto Briefing, said the team chose Jump because of its credit standing, its risk management capabilities and its existing infrastructure. The team's stated goal is to build market structures that can hedge risks traditional AI supply chains don't address. The same summary said Jump has seen a notable rise in trading volumes, particularly in contracts valued in the lower hundreds of millions.
Jump isn't a newcomer to infrastructure-heavy trading. It was founded in 1999 by Paul Gurinas and Bill DiSomma, both former pit traders at the CME, and it's since grown into a prominent proprietary trading firm with operations in multiple locations worldwide. The firm already runs extensive on-premises CPU and GPU infrastructure to power its quantitative research and trading strategies.
The hire is based on Affaan's post as reported by Crypto Briefing, which didn't cite a separate statement from Jump.
Frequently asked questions
What will Jump Trading's new compute trading desk trade?
The desk is run by Itô's founding team, whose specialty is trading access to computing power and AI inference capacity. Inference is the work an AI model does after it's trained, such as answering prompts and generating output.
What kind of contracts will the compute desk start with?
According to Crypto Briefing, the desk will start with mid-market contracts that mostly run for 3 to 5 years. Sizes typically span tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars, and about 30% of these contracts require upfront payments, the outlet reported.
Why did the Itô team choose Jump Trading?
A research summary of the announcement cited by Crypto Briefing said the team chose Jump for its credit standing, risk management capabilities and existing infrastructure. The team's stated goal is to build market structures that can hedge risks traditional AI supply chains don't address.
