Jump Trading LLC

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Jump Trading
Founded	1999
Headquarters	Chicago, Illinois, United States
Key People	Paul Gurinas (founder), William (Bill) DiSomma (founder)
Employees	1600+
Products	algorithmic trading, high-frequency trading, venture capital
Twitter	@JumpTrading
LinkedIn	Profile
Website	https://www.jumptrading.com

Jump Trading LLC ("Jump") is a privately held proprietary trading firm specializing in algorithmic and high-frequency trading across global markets. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, it is recognized for its research-focused approach and technological innovations in the trading industry. It trades all major asset classes on electronic exchanges worldwide, and is one of the world’s largest high-frequency trading firms. Jump has over 1600 employees in 13 offices worldwide in eight different countries.

The company is a member of the Principal Traders Group, an advisory group formed by the Futures Industry Association (FIA) to represent principal traders (i.e. independent proprietary trading firms that trade only on their own accounts).

History

Jump Trading was founded in 1999 by two former pit traders from the Deutsche Mark pit at the CME Group, Paul Gurinas, and CME Group board member William (Bill) DiSomma and John Harada when the firm was named Akamai Trading LLC. Akamai Trading LLC was later renamed Jump Trading in 2001, a reference to the attention Gurinas and DiSomma attracted on trading floors. Harada would leave the partnership and found rival Allston Trading LLC.

Early on, they recognized the shift in financial markets toward electronic trading and sought to leverage computational techniques, such as arbitrage, by using computers to identify price discrepancies across different markets.

The transition to electronic trading allowed Jump Trading to grow rapidly, emphasizing sophisticated algorithmic strategies and robust technical infrastructure. As open outcry diminished in the early 2000s, the firm expanded its operations and technology, eventually spanning major financial centers worldwide. Headquartered in Chicago, Jump Trading maintains additional offices in cities such as New York, London, Singapore, Shanghai, Amsterdam, Bristol, Mumbai, Paris, Austin, Sydney, and Hong Kong.

Jump Trading specializes in algorithmic trading, high-frequency trading, quantitative research, and risk management across asset classes, including futures, options, equities, bond markets, and cryptocurrencies. The company utilizes advanced technology and teams of researchers in mathematics, physics, and computer science to invent, test, and deploy proprietary trading systems.

Technological advancements became a cornerstone of Jump’s operations. Notably, in 2013, Jump invested in high-frequency trading infrastructure, acquiring a Belgian microwave tower for low-latency market access. The company prioritized developing proprietary systems to access global exchanges with minimal delay, contributing to its reputation in algorithmic trading, electronic trading, and market data acquisition.

In the area of credit trading, Jump expanded into fixed-income and derivatives markets, deploying advanced computational models and algorithms. The launch of its crypto division under the brand Jump Crypto in 2021 further reflected its ongoing commitment to developing new market technologies.

Additionally, Jump Trading operates a venture capital arm called Jump Capital, which invests in start-ups across industries, notably in fintech and market infrastructure. Its products support various market segments from institutional investors to exchange liquidity providers. The firm is a registered broker-dealer and a member of global exchanges, including CME Group, New York Stock Exchange, Eurex, London Stock Exchange, and participates actively in liquidity and [[price discovery] in electronic markets.

By January 2016, Jump Capital had invested in 30 companies. Jump Capital also invested $5 million in The Small Exchange in May 2019, a start-up retail trading futures exchange.

In May of 2026, Bloomberg reported that Jump Trading was working with the tokenization firm Securitize Inc. in an effort to move stock trading onto blockchain-based systems within the existing regulatory framework. Company executives said Jump would act as the market-maker, trading the tokenized stocks, and Securitize would provide the infrastructure, with the goal of broadening the market using crypto-based technology.

Jump Crypto

Kanav Kariya was the president of Jump Crypto, the crypto arm of the Jump Trading Group, from September 2021 to June 2024.

Jump Trading's Role in the Failed TerraUSD Stablecoin Project

Jump Trading played a controversial role in artificially propping up the failed TerraUSD (UST) algorithmic stablecoin before its collapse in May 2022. The firm's involvement began during UST's first major crisis in May 2021, when the stablecoin lost its dollar peg and dropped to around $0.90. Jump Trading entered into a secret agreement with Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon to purchase more than 62 million UST tokens between May 23-27, 2021, spending over $20 million to restore the stablecoin's price to $1.

In exchange for this market intervention, Terraform Labs provided Jump Trading with extremely favorable terms, allowing the firm to purchase LUNA tokens at massive discounts—sometimes as low as $0.40 per token when LUNA was trading at over $90 on the open market. Jump acquired 61.4 million LUNA tokens under these arrangements, which netted the firm approximately $1.28 billion in profits according to SEC complaints. Critically, Do Kwon and Terraform Labs publicly portrayed UST's recovery from the May 2021 depeg as proof of the stablecoin's "self-healing abilities," when in reality the recovery was the result of Jump Trading's secret intervention rather than any algorithmic process.

Jump Trading's role in the Terra ecosystem resulted in significant legal and regulatory consequences. In December 2024, Jump Trading's subsidiary Tai Mo Shan Limited agreed to pay $123 million to settle SEC charges related to misleading investors about UST's stability.

The SEC found that Tai Mo Shan "acted negligently by trading UST in a manner that deceived the market into believing that Terraform's algorithmic mechanism was working to stabilize UST, when in reality the price was being stabilized, at least in part, by Tai Mo Shan's large purchases."

The firm also faces a $1.3 billion class action lawsuit alleging market manipulation and securities fraud.

Despite Jump Trading's intervention in 2021, the Terra ecosystem ultimately collapsed in May 2022, resulting in a loss of approximately $40 billion in market capitalization and triggering cascading failures throughout the cryptocurrency industry. The collapse exposed fundamental flaws in the UST algorithmic stablecoin model and revealed how external interventions, rather than algorithmic mechanisms, had been maintaining the illusion of stability.

In May of 2023, Bloomberg reported that two unnamed sources said Jump Crypto was pulling back from U.S. markets, while still planning to expand internationally.

Key People

The firm's founders, Paul Gurinas and William (Bill) DiSomma, are both experienced traders and are recognized for their roles in developing new methods for electronic trading. Their leadership drove Jump’s early adoption of quantitative strategies and technology infrastructure. Other notable figures include Jump Trading Chief Operating Officer Matt Schrecengost, who contributed significantly to the firm’s regulatory engagement and data strategies.

• Bill DiSomma, Partner
• Matt Schrecengost, Chief Operating Officer
• Colleen Hickey, Chief Financial Officer
• Dave Naumann, Chief Technology Officer
• Matthew Ohzourk, Head of Tax
• Michael Quell, Chief Operating Officer, Business Development
• Mark Samelson, Global Head of Risk
• John Mueller, Chief of Staff - Technology
• Adam Gallatin, Head of Trading Operations, Jump Crypto
• Kyle Kavanagh, Head of Market Structure at Jump Trading LLC
• Kevin Gallagher, Head of Trading Services
• Stewart Stimson, Head of Data Strategy at Jump Trading LLC
• John Diehl, Head of Talent Development Programs
• Daniel Gerhardstein, Head of Policy
• Tonya Adduci - Head of Global Business Development

Charitable Work

In 2013, Jump Trading donated $25 million to fund the creation of the Jump Trading Simulation and Education Center.

In February 2014, Jump Trading donated an additional $25 million to fund a joint medical research project between a Peoria simulation & education center and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's College of Engineering. In a statement from the institutions, the donation will support doctors and engineers working together on clinical simulation, education and health care issues striving to "improve the quality of care and outcomes for patients" and "reduce health care costs".

Risk Management

Jump Trading has faced several controversies related to its trading practices. In 2014, the company was among a group of high-speed trading firms subpoenaed by the New York Attorney General concerning their use of high-frequency strategies and possible arrangements with exchanges and dark pools.

In May 2018, Jump Trading was fined $250,000 by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after a malfunction in a trading algorithm led to an unintended short position valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

More recently, Jump Trading has been accused of manipulating the price of the DIO token for the Decimated online game, a case brought by FractureLabs in 2024. The developer claims Jump orchestrated a “pump and dump” scheme, profiting millions and leading to ongoing litigation. The controversy highlights the complexities and potential risks in crypto market-making, and the interface between technology-driven firms and emerging markets.