Deribit Interview: A Leading Crypto Derivatives Exchange
I am on a quest to learn more about new exchanges and trading platforms. I decided to learn more about Deribit. The answers of this interview were provided by John Jansen, Deribit CEO.
Could you briefly describe what Deribit is?
Deribit is a leading crypto derivatives exchange. On our platform customers can trade multiple products that are linked to the price of Bitcoin and this means that traders can take exactly the position that they want in a very cheap and effective way. In terms of traded volume Deribit ranks number 3 in Futures and number 1 in Options and we are growing quickly.
We believe Deribit stands out in terms of speed and stability of its platform. We spent the first half year of 2018 optimizing our platform and we are now ready to deal with any volume. Every product can deal with 5000 orders per second with individual orders being processed within a couple of milliseconds.
How did you come up with the idea to start Deribit?
I have a background market making options on the Amsterdam Options Exchange many years ago. In the Summer of 2012 I heard about Bitcoin for the first time and became excited about it instantly. I started to buy some Bitcoins on various exchange and in 2014, I had the idea for a professional futures and options trading platform for cryptocurrencies.
Could you tell us a little bit about the Deribit team?
I founded Deribit with my brother and our CTO. Now we have a development team of 10 people in Poland, and about 8 people in our head office in Amsterdam, with a couple of others spread around different time zones. We are always looking for more developers and marketing specialists.
Could you describe the vision for Deribit?
We believe the crypto market deserves ‘financial markets grade’ stability and transaction speed. Now we have finished the infrastructure to make this possible we are adding new products and other crypto currencies at great speed. We just launched the new BTC-USD Perpetual. This is a trading product that is always close to the spot price of Bitcoin.
What are the strengths of Deribit?
It is important that our platform is constantly maintained and improved. Our development team has done an incredible job of keeping the Deribit platform running at high speed and adding new products. Another strength is our closeness to our customers which enables us to react to customer requests and ideas quickly. We experienced that our customers value that they can engage directly with the management team in our telegram group.
How does Deribit distinguish itself from other exchanges?
Our customers value our stability and transaction speed, which is on average 20–50 times faster than the competition. We are also the only serious crypto options exchange featuring the only liquid market for put and call options on Bitcoin. This is a fast growing part of our business and one that will continue to grow as more people get involved.
Can you tell us about important developments yet to come and why they are important?
We will introduce Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash futures and perpetuals soon as a first step into the altcoin market. We also have some very interesting options related products in the pipeline but we will talk in more detail about those in the future.
