AD Derivs: Insights from Crypto Option Traders

Live on the Ethereum, Polygon, and Arbitrum, Volmex provides traders with the opportunity to directly trade an implied volatility index for BTC and ETH. Today we chat with Cole Konnelly, the founder of Volmex, about his background and journey into building the first on-chain tradable volatility index. For more information Visit: Website: https://volmex.finance/ Volmex Index Charts: https://charts....

Power Trade is a crypto options exchange. They provide a mobile experience for traders. Up and coming in the crypto vol. scene they just had a record month for volumes in Oct. 2022 Mario walks us through his background before starting Power Trade. We then talk about Power Trade's exchange mechanics and how the crypto options market is evolving, including the potential for DeFi & CeFi cros...

Rysk Finance is a new type of DOV "DeFi option Vault" that goes beyond simple strategies to enable delta hedged volatility exposure.  We talk with Dan and Degeneral DeFi about their protocol as well as the careers before building Rysk.  From more information visit: https://www.rysk.finance/ Twitter: @ ryskfinance If you're interested in joining the Rysk team, email dan@rysk.finance

GSR has nine years of deep crypto market expertise as a market maker, ecosystem partner, asset manager, and active, multi-stage investor. GSR sources and provides spot and non-linear liquidity in digital assets for token issuers, institutional investors, miners, and leading cryptocurrency exchanges. Chris walks us through his journey as a young trader in college to a professional crypto vol. trade...

Hook is a new NFT-native options protocol. In their most basic form, call options represent the right (but not the obligation) to purchase a specific underlying asset at some time in the future. The Hook protocol implements a version of these call options concept applicable to NFTs, ultimately allowing option sellers to earn premiums by selling some potential upside from their asset and allows opt...

Opyn is a defi options protocol that went live on mainnet in Q1 2020.  After building initial DeFi option primitives on Ethereum, Opyn later created the first DeFi power-perpetual known as "Squeeth".  Joe Clark, a major contributor to "Squeeth", enlightens listeners on the mechanical details of "Squeeth" as well as underlying theoretical pricing.  We also ask Joe abou...

Pattern Research is a market-making firm across both CeFi and DeFi in the crypto option space.  We talk about Akshai's and Reid's backgrounds, how they made the switch into crypto vol. and where they see the market now.  Both Akshai and Reid have backgrounds trading for DRW in Chicago. 

Deribit is the world’s biggest crypto options exchange by volume, accounting for around 90% of the open interest for Bitcoin and Ethereum options With its proprietary matching engine, Deribit is one of the most technically advanced crypto derivatives exchanges with co-location services in Equinix LD4 and sub-millisecond order RTTs. Shaun Fernando has a trading background and is the Chief Risk Offi...

Krupa Sagar and Bhargav Kacharla are two of the co-founders of DeFi Options Protocol Oddz.  We talk about the mechanics behind Oddz protocol, their individual backgrounds before co-founding Oddz and the future developments of Oddz protocol.  We also touch on unique insights into the Indian derivatives markets. 

Hao Yang heads the options product division at CeFi exchange Bybit.  We chat about Hao's background in trading and crypto before joining Bybit, some of the innovation behind Bybit's options offering and finally future roadmaps for Bybit.  For more information about Bybit and Bybit Options visit: https://www.bybit.com/

Julien is co-founder of Orca Traders.  Orca originated as an options market maker on Deribit in 2017 and evolved into a fully-fledged prop shop. We chat about the evolution of the crypto vol. surface, Julien's days as an electricity trader and the future of his trading operations.

Sean McNulty helps run the OTC crypto options desk at Coinhako.  We talk about his role at Coinhako, his previous background trading options at JP Morgan and how Sean sees crypto volatility versus other asset classes.   Founded in 2014 by Singapore entrepreneurs, Coinhako was created with a simple value proposition – to create a simple and hassle-free way to access Bitcoin. Over the years, we have...

Josh Lim, who recently left GT to focus on building something new in the crypto space,  spent years as the head of derivatives trading.  Genesis Trading is known for a massive OTC trading desk and lending window.  Josh explains his views on the crypto vol. space, crowded trades in 2022 and touches on the May 2022 market implosion. 

Ribbon Finance is a DeFi Options Vault built on Ethereum, Avax and Solana.  Ribbon is the pioneer of DeFi Option Vaults. Julian talks about his background before starting Ribbon Finance, his journey through the various auction process iterations and the future of Ribbon Finance.  For more information visit: https://www.ribbon.finance/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ribbonfinance

Toby has an extensive background in tier 1 investment banking and hedge funds. He has held senior trading positions at Managing Director level across proprietary trading and asset management including running the proprietary trading desk at Deutsche Bank that focused on fixed income, currency and commodity markets, senior portfolio manager roles at stand alone global macro hedge funds including Se...

Lyra is a decentralized options protocol native to L2 Ethereum. Lyra is an AMM model, DeFi Options Protocol.  Today we talk about Nick's background at SIG, co-founding Lyra and the mechanics of the Lyra AMM. 

Today we explore Tristan's journey into crypto, options and building Zeta Markets. Tristan also explains the rational behind building on Solana as opposed to Ethereum and delves into deep insights regarding the different blockchain mechanics. For more information on Zeta Markets visit: https://zetamarkets.gitbook.io/zeta/

Tom Sosnoff is a trailblazer in the online brokerage industry, driving innovation and financial education for investors of all levels. He offers up his expertise in the options markets as co-host of tastytrade LIVE! , airing daily on the tastytrade network. A former floor trader, Tom became one of Chicago's most well-known serial entrepreneurs in fintech when he built a breakthrough options-t...

Originally from New Zealand, Euan Sinclair is an option trader with twenty five years of professional trading experience and holds a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Bristol. He is the author of "Positional Trading", "Options Trading" and "Volatility Trading".  This interview discusses his background, trading philosophy and what Euan is currently look...

Two Prime is a crypto vol. focused hedge fund with $200m AUM.  Nathan Cox is the Chief Investment Officer and co-founder of Two Prime.  Today we learn about Nathan's career journey, his experience trading various volatility strategies and his journey into crypto volatility. Two Prime website - https://twoprime.io/ Nathan's Twitter Account - https://twitter.com/nathanieljcox

Imran Lakha is a veteran options trader with over +20years of experience. He ran the equity index vol. desks at Merrill Lynch and Citi. After an extensive trading career he founded @options_insight an options education company. For more information about Options Insight and their upcoming bootcamp, check out https://www.options-insight.com/options-trading-bootcamp

Uddhav is the co-founder and CEO @Friktion, a DeFi Option DOV protocol.  Uddhav has a background in energy options trading at BP.  We discuss his previous trading experience, co-founding Friktion and plans for the future of Friktion. 

Mark Sebastian was a former market maker on the AMEX and the CBOE. He is a founding partner and the CIO of Karman Line Capital, a volatility arbitrage hedge fund.  Mark Sebastian is the founder OptionPit.com a full service options mentoring and consulting firm working with traders, money managers, and hedge funds on option strategies. Learn more at https://optionpit.com/

For more information visit https://voladynamics.com/ Misha Fomytskyi Prior to co-founding Vola Dynamics LLC, he spent 12 years working in the derivatives space in trading and quant roles, including head of the options trading team at Getco LLC, as portfolio manager at JD Capital Management, and the founder and CEO of Mivol LLC. Having a deep understanding of trading, modeling, and technology allow...

Michal Koonin is the co-founder of Paradigm.co an RFQ venue for trading crypto options. Paradigm is responsible for 99% of all crypto option block-trades at the time of this recording. For more information visit https://www.paradigm.co/