Deribit, the world’s biggest crypto options exchange, is taking a significant step by subsequently coming into the spot trading space. On late Wednesday, the trading platform publicly declared and announced that they will launch a zero-fee spot exchange come April 24. This comes a month after their competition, Binance, finished their own deduction-free spot trading. Luuk Strijers, the Chief Commercial Officer of Deribit, told The Block that the team has been dealing with the spot trading solutions for the past few months and now can offer their customers a complete range of trading opportunities that include both derivatives and spot trading.

At the launch, Deribit will offer spot trading with three pairs i.e. BTC/USDC, ETH/USDC and ETH/BTC. Although, as per Strijers, the company might list more coins sooner or later. However, the reading pattern of Deduction-Free Trading won’t live forever but it will carry on for some time.

It's been seven years since the beginning of Deribit, and it rapidly accomplished a foremost share in the crypto options market, depending approximately 90% in both bitcoin and Ether options trading. Last year, the exchange faced some rough times as they had to liquidate Three Arrows Capital's (3AC's) positions when the hedge fund crashed and failed to fulfill its margin calls. As a result, Deribit also had to carry a minor burden out of which they later raised $40 million from existing sellers at a market value of $400 million.

The company was rated at roughly $2.1 billion in their prior fundraising in August 2021. Strijers at that time expressed the valuation “doesn’t really count” because the fundraising came from current shareholders. Strijers anticipates that the spot trading launch of Deribit will draw more retail users. Moreover, they also plan to get a crypto license in Dubai and move its main base from Panama to this city.

If Deribit will replicate its options performance in the spot market, where Binance is now the leading nominee, will only be decided with time. Strijers agreed that due to the new digital asset space, trading venues are also required to enlarge and make sure the whole ecosystem is suitable, safe, consistent and clear.

However, it is to be reminded that similar to its derivatives platform, the spot exchange of Deribit won’t be accessible for customers from the US and some other limited countries, according to Strijers.



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