Binance Unveils Options Contracts for XRP and Ethereum

Binance stands as one of the largest players within the crypto industry, being one of the cryptocurrency exchanges the world has to offer. Recently, Binance had announced that it would add options contracts for both the Ethereum and XRP cryptocurrencies. Binance itself stands as the first major exchange to support options that use the XRP tokens.

An Expanding Industry

Options, a financial derivative that allows a buyer of contracts to either sell or buy Ripple and ether as an underlying asset at a specific time in the future, has been ever-present in the conventional finance industry. For the crypto industry, however, the options trading market to buy Ethereum has primarily been dominated by the Deribit exchange, who also stands as a leader in Bitcoin options. In fact, Deribit owns a full 75% of the Bitcoin options market share.

The average Open Interest for Ethereum options within its exchange has been clocked in at around $39 million since its launch back in May of last year. However, as it stands now, Ethereum’s numbers have reached an all-time high on the Deribit exchange. Even so, Binance is known for its expansionism and is eager to push and dominate this new market, as well.

Pushing Out With New Innovations

Binance’s ambitions to stay competitive can be seen in the addition of XRP options, trying to up the ante when it comes to altcoin speculations, as well. The BitMEX exchange was the first heavyweight derivatives exchange that managed to offer XRP futures, having added it in February of this year. BitMEX stands alongside other names like Poloniex, Okex, and Binance, as well as other select exchanges. Binance, however, stands as one of the few exchanges that offer futures contracts in an array of different cryptocurrencies.

Options contracts provide a reduction of risk, but the ultimate choice of trading in either futures or options stands at the discretion of the trader themselves. Another critical thing to take into consideration is the premiums associated with the price of the options themselves. These can serve as a significant indicator of the market sentiments at any given point of time but also stands as a way to add higher volatility to the prices, as well.

Global Crypto Acceptance Ever-Increasing

Overall, this stands as a testament to how the world continues turning. Binance, known for expanding into everything it can get its hands on, has concluded that expanding into the options market will make the exchange money. Thus, expand it did. The world is slowly starting to accept not only crypto but advanced forms of derivatives that can be gained from the industry at large.