Binance enters into the cryptocurrency derivatives market with the acquisition of an exchange based in Seychelles, JEX, which will rebrand to Binance JEX offering options, futures, and perpetual contracts.
The crypto industry is growing constantly with new deals and investments dominating the scene over the years. Binance, the world’s largest exchange by trading volume, has not been left behind. The crypto exchange company is now breaking into the futures market after it announced the acquisition of Seychelles-based crypto asset trading platform JEX.
The press release states that JEX will now be rebranded as Binance JEX as part of the acquisition deal. Additionally, the exchange plans to unveil more utility to the JEX token and provide users with professional services. The platform will offer various derivatives products that include options, futures, and perpetual contracts. Notably:
“JEX will join the Binance ecosystem as Binance JEX and focus on further building the crypto-asset derivatives market.”
Binance Invests in the Crypto Derivatives Market
Binance’s acquisition of JEX happens amidst increasing interest of the exchange in the virtual currency derivatives market. Yi He, the Binance co-founder, allegedly stated that JEX created solid derivatives product offerings aligned with the company’s product roadmaps in the digital-asset derivatives market. He explained:
“We hold an open mind and welcome more partners to join the Binance ecosystem. We look forward to delivering more innovative derivative products in the future as Binance JEX.”
Binance for its part is working on its platform internally. In the coming days, the exchange plans to let users trade on the JEX platform and another platform created to determine which one is superior. As we published earlier, Binance announced crypto futures platforms to be tested by users for 5 days.
Participants will have an opportunity to vote for their favorite platform to stand a chance to win up to 10,000 BNB tokens. It will deploy the winning platform upon completion of the competition based on client feedback. A Binance spokesperson said:
“We think open competition is a great way to test out the products’ usability. Through the competition, we hope to fully review the two products in terms of market feedback, scalability and liquidation model design. It will help with the ultimate decision making.”
Changpeng Zhao, Binance CEO, announced on August 28 that the platform plans to launch futures trading services this month. In that connection, we highlighted that Binance had launched its maiden crypto lending product. The new product lets users earn interest from Tether (USDT), Binance Coin (BNB), and Ethereum Classic (ETC).
Increasing Competition
Binance is entering one of the most competitive markets in the crypto trading space with the debut of this derivatives platform. Deribit and BitMEX, the dominant brands in this space, have experienced significant volumes growth in recent months. Notably, BitMEX’s insurance fund grew by 50% since the beginning of 2019 to more than 31,300 BTC.
On the other hand, Deribit dominates around 95% of the total crypto options market. Recently, CoinFLEX that specializes in physically settled futures contracts acquired $10 million and unveiled a market-making incentive program to enhance its market share. Binance may have to depend on its popularity in the spot market to gain ground in the derivatives space. Ricky Li, the co-founder of market maker Altonomy, explained:
“Given the huge existing customer base on spot and margin trading, it will be relatively much easier for Binance to build initial liquidity than other competitors, which is the most difficult part of starting up an exchange.”
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