Crypto’s Options Market Expands Beyond BTC and ETH to TONcoin
January 26th, Thursday – The nascent cryptocurrency options trading market is ready to explode into life following the addition of its third major cryptocurrency, TONcoin (TON). It’s a big addition to what is potentially one of the most lucrative digital token trading markets, enabling institutional investors and private individuals to increase their exposure to one of the most promising tokens in the crypto ecosystem.
TON options trading has gone live on the leading Bitcoin options and futures exchange BIT today and will be available on Paradigm, the institutional liquidity network for derivatives traders, at a later stage. The addition of TON to crypto options trading was made possible by a collaboration with the pioneering liquidity provider Darley Technologies and blockchain industry market maker DWF Labs, a key backer of the TON ecosystem.
Crypto options trading is a niche market that provides investors with a relatively low-cost and low-risk way of trading digital assets. Options are a type of derivative contract that gives its buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset at a set price on or before its expiration date. Like other crypto derivatives, options enable traders to manage their exposure to, and speculate on the future price of digital assets.
The Open Network (TON) is a revolutionary technology to unite all blockchains and the Web2 internet into a single, open network. It was born to empower billions of Telegram users with genuine Web3. Originally introduced by the Telegram team inheriting its freedom and openness ethos, it has been run as an open-source community project since 2020. TON’s layer-1 architecture is designed to scale up to 2 to the power of 32 workchains, each of which can be subdivided into up to 2 to the power of 60 shardchains. It can support millions of transactions per second near-instantly.
TONcoin was one of the best-performing cryptocurrencies in 2022, with its value gaining more than 200% in the second half of the year, becoming the 23rd largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
With the addition of TON options trading on BIT and, soon, Paradigm, TON is set to become among the most actively traded digital tokens in the burgeoning crypto options market.
“We are thrilled to be working with Darley Technologies and DWF to offer TON options. With the advent of dollar-margined products and the addition of various altcoin options, the options market has enormous growth potential. BIT and our trusted partners are devoted to increasing the accessibility of crypto options for both institutional and retail traders,” BIT Co-founder and COO Lan said in a statement.
Crypto options trading is a fast-growing segment of the digital asset trading market that is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years. In traditional finance, the options trading market is 35-times bigger than the spot market, yet in crypto it only accounts for 2% of all trading activity. As one of the earliest trading exchanges to introduce USD-margined options, BIT is poised to become a leading player in crypto options trading as the market matures, offering unrivaled ease of access for users. With USD as collateral, BIT enables users to trade a variety of options including BTC and ETH, and has the unique capability to quickly add support for additional altcoins.
Darley Technologies and DWF Labs have been instrumental in enabling TON options trading on both BIT and Paradigm. Market making for altcoins options trading is a major challenge that involves new operational risks and has unique market risk management requirements that only Darley Technologies can provide through its cutting-edge trading infrastructure. Darley Technologies intends to play a key role in democratizing crypto options trading, and is committed to participating in future projects that will bring this vision to reality.
“Through cutting edge technology, innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit, Darley Technologies has the vocation to democratize options. Offering market making services on the unique alt-coins options market is a new milestone for us. In addition, this new project, in collaboration with BIT, TON Foundation and DWF Labs, epitomizes the growing trust and synergies with our long standing partners,” said Clément Florentin, CEO & Co-founder of Darley Technologies.
DWF Labs has long been one of the most prominent supporters of the TON ecosystem, committing $10 million to its growth in Nov. 2022. Through its partnership with TON Foundation, DWF Labs supports the network through token development, market creation and exchange listing, and was a key player in bringing TON options trading to BIT and Paradigm.
“With a global community growing at a speed of more than 2% weekly, as well as more than 100 million transactions to date, the TON ecosystem is one of the most promising on the market. Joining the options market is a logical and important step for TON, because until now the only coins available there were BTC and ETH. It means TON will take its place alongside crypto’s most prestigious coins,” said Andrei Grachev, Managing Partner at DWF Labs.
“We have invested $10 million in the TON Foundation last year, and we have pledged - and already started deploying capital - to support 50 projects in 2023.”
TON crypto options trading is an ideal product for institutions and individuals looking to increase their exposure to TON and is live now on BIT. It will become available on Paradigm early next month.
About BIT
BIT is a full-featured cryptocurrency exchange that is designed for use by professionals, with advanced risk management and fund efficiency supported by Portfolio Margin and Unified Margin.
BIT was launched in August 2020 as an affiliate to Matrixport, a prominent crypto financial service company. BIT is one of the top crypto options trading platforms which offer innovative USD-margined trading pairs.
BIT is always striving to widen its selection of tokens, enhance its trading tools, and inspire the creation of innovative financial products.
About Darley Technologies
Darley Technologies is a pioneering liquidity provider for options trading in the cryptocurrency space, with a mission to provide deep and reliable liquidity at competitive prices. Based in Zug, Switzerland, the heart of Europe’s blockchain ecosystem, Darley Technologies brings together teams of highly experienced scientists, developers and traders to design and engineer the most advanced network infrastructures, technology and trading algorithms, enabling it to successfully execute its mission across multiple venues worldwide.
About DWF Labs
DWF Labs is a global leading digital asset market maker and multi-stage web3 investment firm, providing support from token listing to market making to OTC trading solutions. DWF Labs seeks to invest and support bold founders who want to build the future of Web3.
DWF Labs is present in Singapore, Switzerland, South Korea, the BVI, and the UAE and trades almost 2,000 pairs with a daily volume that places DWF Labs among the top 5 ranking entities trading on the world’s top 40 exchanges.
About Paradigm
Paradigm is a zero-fee, institutional liquidity network for derivatives traders across CeFi and DeFi. The platform provides traders with unified access to multi-asset, multi-protocol liquidity on demand without compromising on execution preferences, costs and immediacy. The firm's mission is to create a platform where traders can trade anything, with anyone and settle it anywhere.
Paradigm has the largest network of institutional counterparties in crypto with over 600 institutional clients trading over $10 B per month including Hedge Funds, OTC Desks, Lenders, Structured Product Issuers, Market Makers, and prominent Family Offices.