What Your Market Maker Dashboard Should Show You

Ask most market makers about reporting and you'll get some version of: "We send a monthly summary with key metrics." A PDF with a few charts, some average numbers, and a paragraph of commentary. Delivered 2-3 weeks after the period it covers.

This is the industry standard. It's also completely inadequate.

Monthly reporting tells you what happened. It doesn't help you understand what's happening now, whether the market maker is meeting their commitments in real-time, or whether a problem that started two days ago is getting worse.

If you're paying $15K-$40K per month for market making, you should know exactly what you're getting. Here's what that looks like.

The minimum: what every client should see

Bid-ask spread over time

A real-time or hourly chart showing the bid-ask spread on each venue. Not the average spread (which hides episodes of wide spreads), but the actual spread plotted over time. You should be able to see: when spreads were tight, when they widened, and for how long.

This is the most fundamental metric. If your contract says "maximum 0.5% spread during 90% of trading hours," this chart tells you whether that's happening.

Order book depth

How much liquidity is sitting on the book at various levels from mid-price. The standard view shows depth at 0.5%, 1%, 2%, and 5% from the current price. This should be shown for each venue separately and as an aggregate.

A token can have a tight spread but thin depth. A tight spread with $5K on each side means the first $6K trade blows through the market maker's quotes. Depth tells you how much the market can absorb.

Volume attribution

What percentage of daily volume comes from the market maker vs organic traders? This is one of the most important metrics and one that most market makers don't disclose.

If 95% of your daily volume is the market maker trading with itself or with arb bots, your organic market is much smaller than headline numbers suggest. If 50% is organic and growing, your market is healthy and the market maker's liquidity is attracting genuine participants.

Volume attribution requires the market maker to tag their own orders. Some exchanges provide this data directly. Others require the market maker to track it internally. Either way, you should know.

Inventory position

How much of your token does the market maker currently hold? Are they net long or net short? How has this changed over time?

This matters because a market maker accumulating a large long position means they've been net buyers, which eventually needs to unwind. A market maker with a consistently neutral position is managing inventory well.

If the market maker is using a token loan, this is especially important. You need to know where your tokens are.

The ideal: a real-time client dashboard

Beyond the minimum metrics, the best market makers provide a live dashboard that clients can access at any time. This includes everything above plus:

Cross-venue pricing

A single view showing the bid, ask, and mid-price on every venue simultaneously. When prices diverge, it's immediately visible. You shouldn't need to check four different exchange tabs to understand your market.

Trade log

A timestamped log of every trade the market maker executed, including venue, side (buy/sell), size, and price. This is the ultimate transparency tool. It lets you verify that reported metrics match actual activity.

Not every client wants or needs to read trade logs. But the fact that they're available signals that the market maker has nothing to hide.

Uptime tracking

A reliability meter showing what percentage of time the market maker has been actively quoting on each venue. Dips in uptime should be explained: was it an exchange outage? A planned maintenance window? An unplanned system failure?

P&L visibility

Some market makers share their trading P&L with clients. This isn't standard, but it's a powerful alignment signal. If the market maker is profitable while maintaining tight spreads and good depth, the arrangement is sustainable. If they're losing money, they'll eventually either degrade service quality or renegotiate terms. Knowing this early prevents surprises.

Alert system

Automated alerts when metrics fall outside agreed parameters. Spread exceeds target for more than 10 minutes. Depth drops below minimum threshold. Cross-venue divergence exceeds 1%. Uptime drops below target.

You shouldn't have to check the dashboard constantly. The dashboard should tell you when something needs attention.

Why most market makers don't offer this

Building a real-time client dashboard is expensive. It requires engineering investment, data infrastructure, and ongoing maintenance. Many market makers, especially smaller or newer firms, genuinely don't have the capability.

Others have the capability but don't want to provide it. Transparency makes it harder to underperform without accountability. If the client can see real-time spreads, they'll notice when spreads are wider than promised. If they can see volume attribution, they'll question whether the volume numbers in the monthly report are real.

The firms that invest in transparency do so because it's a competitive advantage. Clients who can see what they're getting are more likely to stay long-term. The reporting itself becomes a retention tool because the client develops confidence in the service and trust in the data.

How to evaluate reporting during due diligence

When evaluating market makers, ask:

"Can I see a sample of your client reporting?" If they can't show you a redacted example, they either don't have a standard format or it's embarrassingly thin.

"Do clients have access to a live dashboard?" Yes or no. If no, ask what the reporting cadence is and what data is included.

"Can I see volume attribution?" This is the question that separates serious firms from the rest. Most will pause. The good ones will say yes immediately.

"How quickly would I know if there's a problem?" If the answer is "in the next monthly report," that's 30 days of a problem compounding before you're aware of it.

The transparency standard is rising

Two years ago, a monthly PDF was acceptable. The bar has moved. Projects are more sophisticated, more data-literate, and more demanding. Market makers that don't adapt will lose clients to firms that offer real-time visibility.

If you're currently working with a market maker who provides limited reporting, ask for more. Most firms can provide additional data if a client requests it. They may not have a polished dashboard, but they can share raw data, spreadsheets, or API access to their metrics.

If they refuse, that tells you something important. Not about their reporting capability, but about their willingness to be accountable for the service they're charging you for.

Transparency isn't a feature. It's a fundamental requirement. Any market maker that treats your token's liquidity as a black box is asking you to trust them with one of your most critical infrastructure layers while giving you no way to verify that trust. That's not a partnership. It's a leap of faith.