78% of Open Interest in Bitcoin Options is Dominated by Deribit Platform

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78% of Open Interest in Bitcoin Options is Dominated by Deribit Platform

By - min read
Updated 29 May 2020

Deribit is now the largest crypto platform for Bitcoin options, taking up nearly 80% of the open interest market share.

Crypto derivatives exchange, Deribit, has hit record figures in Bitcoin open interest, cementing its position as the most dominant player in the Bitcoin options market with a 78% index share.

On May 20, open interest in options contracts on Deribit reached 100,000 BTC, or about $970 million.

According to crypto data provider, Skew, the figures put the exchange way ahead of competitors, with the CME second at 14%, LedgerX at 4%, OKEx at 4%,and Bakkt at less than 1%.

BTC Options open interest market share: Deribit/Twitter

Tokendata also released a market commentary that shows Deribit’s strong performance in the options market, in March 2020, is the reason it has seen high volumes, as well as open interest. The data provider also attributes the options exchange’s strong recovery following a poor start, in a market that is only beginning to see an uptick in interest.

Deribit has attributed its performance to offering one of the best products to the investor community. It confirms Tokendata’s take that the exchange is seeing such massive uptake and interest after undertaking an upgrade to its infrastructure.

In early April, Deribit announced that it had migrated its servers to UK-based Equinix LD4, a leading data centre designed for financial service companies. The Bitcoin derivatives platform noted at the time that the migration allowed it to revamp its system-processing capacity, as well as cut down on loading times.

The Deribit team claims to be the “first mover and the only exchange offering continuous lit order books and portfolio margin“.

The platform also prides itself on offering “multiple market makers quoting options,” giving margin traders the opportunity to buy and sell options without the unfortunate scenario of “trading against the house“.

Options daily volumes

According to Deribit, the daily average volume for Bitcoin Options in May has been over 11,400 contracts.  The figure is slightly higher than the daily average volume in March at 10,300.

While the spot and futures market provides the majority of Bitcoin trading volume, the options market has begun to record significant volumes too. The majority of major crypto exchange platforms offer spot markets, while the futures market is also seeing increased activity.

Binance is one of these platforms seeking a share of the professional trader’s market to enter the space. The launch of Binance Options was a modest success, seeing more than $295 million traded 24 hours after its launch.