The LSE Directory / Prop firms
Jump Trading is a privately held proprietary trading firm headquartered in Chicago. It trades its own capital, not client money, across futures, options, equities, fixed income, currencies and cryptocurrency on exchanges worldwide, using algorithmic and high frequency strategies built on custom-engineered infrastructure. The firm describes itself as a place where traders, engineers and researchers apply advanced research and deep technical expertise across asset classes, and its public site emphasizes an internal AI and machine learning practice applied to model design and production trading systems rather than to any customer-facing product. Jump distinguishes itself within the proprietary trading category through the depth of its own infrastructure build, including low latency networks and colocated systems, and through hiring concentrated in mathematics, physics and computer science rather than traditional finance backgrounds. It does not manage external client capital, which separates it from asset managers and hedge funds in adjacent directory categories. Its crypto arm, Jump Crypto, extended the firm's principal trading model into digital assets, both trading and directly building and investing in blockchain infrastructure and protocols, and its venture arm, Jump Capital, founded in 2012, has made equity investments in fintech and other companies outside the firm's core trading book. The firm was founded in 1999 by Paul Gurinas and Bill DiSomma, two former open-outcry pit traders who met trading Deutsche Mark futures at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange; it was originally named Akamai Trading LLC and renamed Jump Trading in 2001. It has since grown to more than 2,000 employees across offices including Chicago, New York, Austin, London, Bristol, Amsterdam, Paris, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mumbai, GIFT City and Sydney, and is a member of the Futures Industry Association's Principal Traders Group. Jump Crypto's activity has drawn significant regulatory and legal scrutiny: in December 2024 its subsidiary Tai Mo Shan Ltd. agreed to pay the SEC 123 million dollars, covering disgorgement, prejudgment interest and a civil penalty, to settle charges of negligently misleading investors about the TerraUSD stablecoin's stability, and in February 2026 the liquidator for the collapsed Terraform Labs filed a 4 billion dollar lawsuit against Jump Trading and its executives alleging a secret profit-sharing arrangement ahead of the Terra collapse. Jump has continued expanding its crypto and market-structure activity into 2026, including a May 2026 partnership with tokenization firm Securitize and trading venue Jupiter to bring regulated, onchain trading of tokenized equities to market, and a reported February 2026 move to take small equity stakes in the prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket.
