Crypto & Market Structure
Perps, options, funding, basis, open interest, liquidity, crowding and risk.
THE VISUAL MARKET LIBRARY
Complex finance, stripped of its secret language.
Visual explainers built from more than three decades inside trading and market structure — for professionals, students and curious people who want to understand the machinery without drowning in jargon.
30+years inside markets
50+traders hired and trained
6questions in every story
Protected previewsFull readable files are delivered after purchase.
VISUAL • PRACTICAL • RISK-FIRST
Plain English
Without flattening the nuance.
Connected markets
Spot, derivatives, funding and flow.
Risk before returns
Decision protection, not prediction theatre.
Built for learning
Professional depth, student-ready clarity.
HOW PRODUCT PREVIEWS WORK
Enough to judge the quality. Not enough to give the product away.
Before purchaseTitle, audience, outcomes, contents and a blurred, watermarked sample.
After purchaseThe clean high-resolution PNG/PDF and the licence attached to that product.
Public-file protectionNo readable master artwork sits inside the public website folder.
SHOP THE COLLECTION
Start with one question. Build a proper mental model.
Every product page shows a deliberately limited, watermarked preview. The clean readable artwork is never served publicly; it is delivered only after checkout. Historic institutional material remains behind source, fact-check and rights gates.
THE COMPLETE VISUAL LIBRARY
One brand. Five connected worlds.
The catalogue is broader than the live shop, but every card remains protected. Browse the topics and teaching promise without receiving the full readable visual before purchase.
Rates & Derivatives
Treasury futures, repo, DV01, STIRs, TED spreads, swaps and relative value.
Macro & Public Finance
Debt, gilts, auctions, yield curves and how markets reach ordinary life.
Markets & Probability
Prediction markets, options thinking and the pricing of uncertain outcomes.
Market History & Human Behaviour
What crises, technology shifts and liquidity shocks looked like from inside the market.
FOR STUDENTS & UNIVERSITIES
Markets make more sense when theory meets what actually happened.
Textbooks explain the model. Malcolm Explains connects the model to what traders, hedgers and institutions were seeing, doing and fearing in real time.
The aim is not to turn students into gamblers. It is to build market literacy: how prices form, how risk travels, why liquidity disappears, and which questions should be asked before a decision is made.
Foundations
Futures, options, perps, curves, funding and the language of markets.
Market plumbing
Price formation, liquidity, order flow, hedging, collateral and incentives.
Market history
The credit crisis, negative rates, pandemic markets and crypto deleveraging.
Applied judgement
How to combine data, positioning and risk — including the decision not to trade.
What did the credit crisis actually feel like from inside a trading desk?
I was once invited to help an Oxford economics doctoral researcher connect the theory of the credit crisis with what traders were actually seeing, doing and fearing in real time. That gap between the chart after the event and the decision inside it is exactly what this series is built to close.
LEARN FROM EXPERIENCE
From market foundations to first-person market history.
Learning formats
- Affordable individual student licences
- Lecturer packs, seminar questions and case studies
- Guest lectures and market-history workshops
- University, society and campus licences
THE MALCOLM SIX
A repeatable way to make complicated markets understandable.
Every flagship explainer forces a subject through six questions. That prevents pretty pictures from becoming shallow content.
Use the method for your own product or team →- 1What is it?
Define the instrument or problem without hiding behind vocabulary.
- 2Who decides?
Identify the people, institutions, rules and incentives that shape it.
- 3Who owns or pays?
Follow the money, collateral, obligations and ultimate risk bearer.
- 4How does it trade?
Explain price formation, liquidity, positioning and market plumbing.
- 5Who benefits or bears risk?
Separate genuine utility from hidden transfers and fragility.
- 6Why does it matter?
Connect the mechanism to decisions, businesses and everyday consequences.
MALCOLM EXPLAINS FOR TEAMS
Turn your complex product into something clients and colleagues can actually understand.
Built for exchanges, brokers, asset managers, fintechs, trading firms, educators and leadership teams.
- Custom visual explainer built around your real objective
- Independent challenge before the message is polished
- Internal training, client education and board-ready formats
- Optional workshop, source pack and licence structure
Custom flagship explainerFrom £495Scope-dependent. No payment until the brief is agreed.
THE EXPERIENCE BEHIND THE EXPLAINERS
MEET MALCOLM BAKER
Three decades inside markets — now translated for people trying to understand them.
Malcolm is a trading, treasury and market-structure executive who has built markets and businesses across traditional finance and digital assets. His career spans market making and portfolio management, Jump Trading, CME Group, global fixed-income leadership, exchange strategy, treasury, OTC and crypto derivatives. The point of Malcolm Explains is to make that accumulated experience useful beyond a trading room.
years across FX, rates, derivatives, liquidity and crypto markets
offices led as Global Head of Fixed Income Trading
traders hired, trained and developed
former Senior Director, Interest Rate & FX Product Development
former Portfolio Manager & Director, focused on order flow and market microstructure
trading-room, treasury, OTC and market-structure capabilities built from scratch
funding-rate, pricing, hedging and liquidity frameworks across both worlds
“I want to bring people into markets — not by making them sound easy, but by making the mechanics visible.”
QUESTIONS BEFORE CHECKOUT
No small print theatre.
What do I receive?
Live digital products include the files listed on the product card, delivered after payment. The local MVP contains private fulfilment bundles; the live site needs Stripe and secure delivery connected before launch.
Can I read the complete visual before buying?
No. You can see the title, subject, learning outcomes, included files and a protected sample. The clean readable artwork is deliberately kept outside the public website and is delivered after checkout.
Why are some products on a waitlist?
Several rates-market explainers were distilled from historic institutional decks. Even where the ideas are standard market knowledge, commercial release should wait for source-note, fact-check and rights review. That is a feature, not a nuisance.
Can I share a personal purchase with my team?
No. Personal licences are for one purchaser. Internal team use, client presentations, workshops and custom branding require a separate team or corporate licence.
Is this investment advice?
No. Malcolm Explains is educational material. It does not recommend a trade, promise a return or replace professional financial, legal, tax or risk advice.
Can you create an explainer for my firm?
Yes. The custom process starts with the audience and decision, then challenges the thesis, researches the mechanism, simplifies it and builds the final visual.
Is this suitable for university students?
Yes. The student pathway begins with plain-English foundations, then moves into market plumbing, applied risk and first-person market history. Individual, lecturer and campus licences will be separated clearly.
Can a university use the visuals in teaching?
Yes, under a university or lecturer licence. That can include seminar prompts, case-study notes, guest lectures and permission for defined classroom or virtual-learning use.