DeFi Quant Research Intern — On-Chain Markets

Keyrock; Greater London; Remote; GBP 17,000 - 23,000; Full time

Job summary

Keyrock is seeking 3-4 high-caliber Quantitative Analyst Interns for Strategic Market Making, DeFi and related desks. You will study on-chain markets, backtest trading hypotheses, and build data pipelines while collaborating with researchers, traders and engineers.

The internship lasts six months, with possible base in Brussels or London. You will gain hands-on experience across CeFi and DeFi, learning how protocol mechanics affect liquidity, execution and risk in a fully remote-first, globally

Qualifications

• Pursuing or recently completed degree in mathematics, computer science, engineering, physics, quantitative finance or related field.
• Proficient in Python for data analysis; comfortable with SQL, Git and command-line workflows.
• Understanding of transactions, state changes, gas, blocks, consensus and finality; able to reason about on-chain interactions.
• Knowledge of DeFi concepts: AMMs, liquidity, oracles, MEV.
• Hands-on curiosity with DeFi projects or on-chain datasets.

Responsibilities

• Research on-chain market structure by analysing liquidity, price formation, participant behaviour and execution across decentralized markets.
• Study how protocol mechanics, transaction ordering, gas, slippage, latency and MEV affect execution quality and strategy performance.
• Formulate trading hypotheses and evaluate them using blockchain data, market data, backtests and simulations.
• Build reusable Python tools and data pipelines for research, monitoring and performance analysis.
• Analyse relationships between centralized and decentralized markets and identify implications for pricing, hedging and risk.
• Support live strategies through monitoring, post-trade analysis and investigation of unexpected performance.
• Present findings clearly, including assumptions, limitations, risks and recommended next steps.

Skills

Python

SQL

Git

Command-line

English communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in mathematics, computer science, engineering, physics or quantitative finance

Tools

RPCs

Indexers

Subgraphs

Analytics platforms

Job description

Keyrock is seeking 3-4 high-caliber Quantitative Analyst Interns for Strategic Market Making, DeFi and related desks. You will study on-chain markets, backtest trading hypotheses, and build data pipelines while collaborating with researchers, traders and engineers.

The internship lasts six months, with possible base in Brussels or London. You will gain hands-on experience across CeFi and DeFi, learning how protocol mechanics affect liquidity, execution and risk in a fully remote-first, globally