Bullish (BLSH), a NYSE-listed digital asset platform focusing on Coindesk’s institutional investors and parent company, will begin tentative crypto options trading starting October 8th.
These bitcoins BTC$118,682.83 Options are framed and resolved by Stablecoin USDC awarded in regulated dollars. Additionally, these will be European-style options with expiration dates ranging from 3 weeks to 3 months. The contract multiplier is 1. In other words, one contract represents one full BTC.
Exchange will list ether-related options and other single assets and multi-asset indexes, such as Coindesk 20 and Coindesk 5 in the future.
Bullish’s decision to launch options is part of a broader industry trend characterized by increased demand for hedged equipment across the entire range of crypto products. This growing appetite is illustrated by the growing popularity of options associated with BlackRock’s Spot Bitcoin ETF.
“Bully is investing heavily in its institutional offering,” said Chris Tyrer, president of Bullish Exchange. “Our journey began with spot trading and expanded to include margins, then a lasting, outdated future, and reached new milestones with the introduction of options.”
He added that the new product is intended to provide a complete suite of derivative products with capital efficiency and risk mitigation.
An option is a derivative agreement that grants the owner the rights, rather than the obligation to buy or sell certain assets, such as Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency, at a given price within a set time frame. Call options provide a purchase right to represent a bullish bet on the market, but puts protect against potential price losses.
The special feature of options is that it promotes 3D trading and allows traders to take advantage of the direction of price, the degree of price volatility, and the time it takes to expire. This multifaceted nature allows traders to create synthetic positions by combining spots, futures and options markets, and manage risk with a more tailored and flexible strategy.
Day-One Trading Partners Consortium
Bullish’s new options are designed in close collaboration with leading option market makers, technology providers and brokers, making sure they are tailored specifically to meet the needs of institutional investors.
More importantly, from day one, these options will be supported by a variety of industry heavyweights as trading partners, including Abraxas Capital Management, Ampersan, B2C2, Blocktech, Cumberland, Falconx, Fig Markets, Flow Traders, Galaxy Digital, Monarq Asset Management, Pulsar, Signalplus, Wintermute, and Qube Research & Technologies.
“Galaxy is thrilled to support the next chapter in Bullish’s Journey,” said Jason Urban, global trading head at Galaxy. “Adding options to our product suite is a powerful step forward in improving liquidity, deepening price discovery and enhancing the overall maturity of the crypto derivatives market.”
Unified margin system
The global crypto options market is valued as an expected open profit of over $50 billion, with Deribit alone making up more than 80% of its activities. In other words, the exchange has a big head start compared to an imminent bullish option deal.
Still, Bullish’s announcement stands out because of the platform’s unified margin system.
“Bully clients will be able to access all their products through a unified account structure and trade spots, parps, date futures, and now risk offsets and portfolio-secured options. This setup is designed for the greatest capital efficiency that is most important to the institution’s customer base.”
In Deribit, the separated standard margin is the default margin system. This means that standard margin, initial margin, and maintenance margin (MM) requirements are calculated separately for each location in your account. Next, summarise these requirements to generate the total margin requirements for your account.
Finally, Bullish already has a vibrant future and spot market. This is often considered a prerequisite for successful optional products.
Since its launch in November 2021, Bullish has surpassed its cumulative trading volume of $1.5 trillion. This year, the platform has run more than $2 billion on average daily volume due to its spot volume of Bitcoin and Ether, ranking in the top 10 exchanges.
The business is approved by the New York State Department of Financial Services, the German Federal Financial Supervision, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, and the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission.
