Gemini's Trading Subsidies Fund Services
Gemini
Gemini’s institutional trading business only makes sense if trading is a lead generator for other products. The core exchange relationship is very low priced, with institutional fees at roughly 2 to 3 bps and $21.5B of H1 2025 institutional volume contributing to a blended take rate of 0.18 percent. The profit pool sits in services layered on top, especially custody, settlement, and derivatives, where clients pay recurring asset based fees or higher monetization on leveraged trading.
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Custody is the clearest cross sell. Gemini markets qualified custody with offline storage, $125M of insurance, and recurring fees. Its own fee schedule lists 40 bps annually plus $125 per withdrawal, although Gemini’s public filing says annualized custody fees were 0.1 percent of assets under custody as of June 30, 2025, which shows large institutions are likely getting negotiated pricing well below list.
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Derivatives are the second monetization layer because they earn more per dollar traded than spot. Gemini launched its non U.S. derivatives venue in 2023 and has kept adding perpetual contracts, but eligibility excludes U.S. persons. That means the highest margin upsell is structurally limited to offshore clients, while Gemini still carries the cost base of a tightly regulated U.S. trust company.
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Coinbase Prime shows what a scaled version of this model looks like. Coinbase bundles qualified custody, deep liquidity, staking, financing, and perpetual style futures in one institutional workflow, and says institutions are using multiple Prime services. That matters because prime brokerage gets stronger when trading, custody, and financing all live under one roof, which raises the bar for Gemini’s cross sell engine.
The path forward is for Gemini to turn low fee flow into a true prime brokerage stack. If more institutions keep assets in custody, settle block trades in GUSD, and use Gemini’s derivatives venue, the same client base becomes much more valuable. If not, Gemini remains a compliant spot venue with thin margins and little operating leverage.