There's a blind spot in how most people research tokens.
Before taking a position in an altcoin, a reasonably careful investor will check volume, TVL, fees, the unlock schedule, holder distribution, maybe exchange listings. What almost nobody checks (because until now there was nothing to check) is who's actually making the market: which firms are quoting the bids and asks, how tight their pricing runs, how much depth they maintain, and whether they stay online when things get ugly.
Market maker performance determines the spread you pay on entry, the depth available when you want out, and whether a token's market holds together or falls apart during a drawdown. If you're buying an altcoin, you're not just taking a position on the project, you're making a bet on the firms running its liquidity. Skip that part of the research and you don't fully understand the market you're entering.
Which is why we're glad to share some news.
Forgd's Market Maker Leaderboard is now live on Token Relations
We've partnered with Forgd, a Web3 investment bank and advisory platform, to host their Market Maker Leaderboard here on Token Relations. The leaderboard ranks crypto market-making firms on standardized measures of pricing, order book depth, reliability, and execution quality.
“Our goal with Token Relations has always been to make the digital asset market easier to understand through high-quality research and data,” says StrataMedia Founder & CEO Jacquelyn Melinek. “Partnering with Forgd allows us to bring greater transparency around market maker performance, giving our institutional and retail audiences another valuable tool to evaluate liquidity, assess risk, and make more informed decisions.
The leaderboard draws on more than 500 token projects and 35 market-making firms that use Forgd's tools to monitor liquidity across live engagements. That large pool of data creates a standardized record of how each firm has actually performed — across different tokens, different venues, and different market conditions.
Forgd built the leaderboard in May 2026 for token projects choosing between market makers. This week it goes public for the first time, here and on DefiLlama, which means anyone can now fold market-maker quality into their research the same way they'd check TVL or an unlock calendar.
"Market-maker quality has been the missing input in token research," says Shane Molidor, Forgd's Founder and CEO. "Traders already scrutinize volume, liquidity, TVL, unlocks, and fees. You can't accurately judge a token's liquidity without also understanding who's providing it. And until now, there was no way to check."
Why we think this is good for the whole market
Market making has long operated on reputation and relationships. Projects picked firms based on pitches and referrals, then evaluated them through reports the firms themselves helped shape. There was no shared, neutral scoreboard, which meant firms with mediocre execution could keep winning mandates, because nobody outside their existing clients could see the difference.
Public track records change the incentives on both sides of that market. Firms that quote tight, maintain real depth, and stay reliable through volatile stretches can finally prove it. Firms that can't will find their record harder to talk around, and harder to win bids with. And token projects now have a reason to hire on quality rather than price or familiarity, because the investors researching their token are looking at the same leaderboard they are.
Play that forward and you get a slow, structural improvement: mandates flow toward documented execution, projects compete on the health of their liquidity rather than the headline size of it, and traders inherit better markets. None of that happens overnight. All of it starts with the data being public.
Alongside the leaderboard, we're teaming up with Forgd to launch a market and token-focused newsletter covering the state of the digital asset market. It will be going out to our 130,000 subscriber base including VCs, institutional investors, developers, and token holders. More on that soon.
The Market Maker Leaderboard is live now at https://stratamedia.co/token-relations/leaderboard. If you're researching a token, add it to the checklist. And subscribe for the newsletter here.
About Token Relations
Token Relations is a crypto-native investor relations and ecosystem relations platform, helping the world's leading blockchains and protocols turn ecosystem attention into informed action. It works with over a dozen leading chains to streamline communication, deepen engagement, and create more informed, active ecosystems.
About Forgd
Forgd is a Web3 investment bank and advisory platform equipping blockchain projects with tools for tokenomics design, market-maker engagement, liquidity monitoring, and exchange listing support. With options for bespoke advisory services and free self-service products, Forgd helps token projects design, launch, and manage healthier markets. New projects can join for free at Forgd.com.