gvol.io - The crypto, options, and trading show: Recent Episodes
Greg Magadini
Gvol.io is an institutional grade crypto options analytics platform. CEO Greg Magadini interviews titans in the crypto vol. trading space, as well as traditional markets vol. traders and other successful traders.
Abra is a financial services and technology company that operates a cryptocurrency wallet service including a trading service for buying and selling cryptocurrencies, a service for earning interest on cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, and a lending services for borrowing against cryptocurrency collateral.
Before heading the OTC options trading desk at Abra, Bohan spent years trading FX options at Goldman Sachs. We discuss Bohan's background as well as the various volatility trading insights he learned throughout the years.
Today Bohan trades crypto options on a principle basis for Abra. Facilitating customer flow and warehousing risk on a proprietary basis.
For more information about Abra visit: https://www.abra.com/
Brent Kochuba is the Founder of SpotGamma, a financial insights company, which applies its proprietary methodology toward modeling index and equity options.
Prior to SpotGamma, Brent was most recently a portfolio manager with Seven North Capital Management where he focused on creating options-based investment strategies. Prior to that, he spent time as a derivatives broker at Wolverine Execution, Credit Suisse and Bank of America.
Learn more about SpotGamma: https://spotgamma.com/
Register for Trace Webinar: https://spotgamma.com/trace-the-market-amberdata-io/?aff=Amberdata
Jake Ostrovskis is a principal on Wintermute’s over-the-counter (OTC) Desk.
Jake executes trades for a range of counterparties in digital assets and advising on products like spot, options, tailored products, CFDs, and NDFs.
Before joining Wintermute, Jake worked at a hedge fund within a global macro pod, concentrating on chasing volatility in equity, rates, FX, and commodity derivatives. His position there eventually led him to crypto.
He then transitioned from directional trading to OTC, executing with third parties at Wintermute.
For more about Wintermute visit: https://www.wintermute.com/
ex-GSR OTC trader and exotic derivatives specialist, Neoman007 explores discussions about his career, crypto volatility and pricing insights for trading exotic derivs.
To get more market insights, follow Neoman's Telegram channel: https://t.me/itscorrekt
Bitnomial was founded in 2014 to create a marketplace connecting native digital asset hedgers with institutional traders. Bitnomial offers improved derivatives exchange technology coupled with new digital asset settlement systems.
NFA Approval: Bitnomial Clearing, LLC was approved as a futures commission merchant (FCM) by the National Futures Association (NFA) to operate a clearing firm for margined and deliverable digital asset futures and options.
CFTC Approval: Bitnomial Clearinghouse, LLC was registered as a derivatives clearing organization (DCO) by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to operate a clearinghouse for margined and deliverable digital asset futures and options, becoming the first crypto-native exchange to be granted the full set of CFTC derivatives licenses.
We discuss Michael's background as a bond market-maker at Allston Trading in Chicago. We also discuss the unique value Bitnomial presents to crypto miners and speculators. Including physically settled futures contracts.
SynFutures is a decentralized derivatives exchange platform that allows users to trade futures contracts based on various assets, including cryptocurrencies, altcoins, indices, NFTs, and real-world assets. The platform offers features such as 30-second asset listings, single-token liquidity provision and trading, and rigid risk management. SynFutures has strategic investors and aims to provide accessible DeFi services to retail investors.
Cannon Trading Company has been based in the Beverly Hills financial district since 1988. They are a member of the National Futures Association, the Better Business Bureau, the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce and are registered with the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission). Cannon Trading has been mentioned in several publications, including the Online Broker's Review in Futures magazine and the Reader's Choice Award in Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities magazine.
Bernd Sischka is the chief commercial officer at PowerTrade.
Today we discuss the novel offering of altcoin options trading at PowerTrade and the various tools that PowerTrade offers to their traders.
PowerTrade is transforming professional trading with innovative, accessible, and secure solutions for institutions and expert traders. Their dedication to excellence and continuous improvement fuels our pursuit of outstanding customer experiences and lasting partnerships.
Website: https://power.trade/
About Rho
Rho provides efficient markets for crypto-native rates such as funding rates, lending-borrowing rates, and staking rewards.
The platform enables users to hedge and profit from shifts in these crypto-native rates, offering tools to develop sophisticated trading strategies.
With the traditional finance (TradFi) interest rate derivatives market totaling over $500 trillion in outstanding interest, Rho Protocol is poised to unlock new and exciting trading opportunities.
Docs: https://docs.rho.trading/
Platform: https://www.rho.trading/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Rho_xyz
Today we interview Bret Kenwell, U.S. Investment & Options Analyst at eToro.
We discuss Bret's background, the increased adoption of options trading by retail investors since the COVID-19 pandemic and the overlap between crypto investors and options traders.
Finally we conclude the episode with insights around the future of crypto and options trading.
For more information about eToro visit: https://www.etoro.com/en-us/
BitMEX has officially launched options.
We discuss the recent launch and the collaboration with Power Trade.
We explore the AltCoin offering from BitMEX and other unique option trading insights.
To learn more about BitMEX options visit here: https://www.bitmex.com/options
Vertex is a cross-margined decentralized exchange (DEX) protocol offering spot, perpetuals, and an integrated money market bundled into one vertically integrated application on Arbitrum.
Vertex is powered by a hybrid unified central limit order book (CLOB) and integrated automated market maker (AMM), whose liquidity is augmented as positions from pairwise LP markets populate the orderbook. Gas fees and MEV are minimized on Vertex due to the batched transaction and optimistic rollup model of the underlying Arbitrum layer two (L2), where Vertex’s smart contracts control the risk engine and core products.
Wintermute is a leading proprietary trading crypto market maker. They provide liquidity solutions across the digital asset eco-system.
They create liquidity on the world's best crypto exchanges and trading platforms. They use algorithmic and high-frequency trading methods to create markets; centralized crypto exchanges, DeFi, spot, derivatives, ETPs
They offer some of the most competitive prices via OTC (automated RFQ and with direct trader support) to funds, institutional OTC desks, trading platforms, miners and other institutions
They support listings and ongoing liquidity for high-potential crypto projects
dYdX is a leading decentralized exchange that currently supports perpetual trading. dYdX runs on smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain, and allows users to trade with no intermediaries.
Today we chat with Juliano, the founder and CEO of dYdX.
We explore Juliano's background, the evolution of dYdX and the vision for dYdX V4.
Website: https://dydx.exchange/
Hashflow is a DEX Aggregator that offers deep liquidity across the leading blockchains. Leveraging an intent-based Smart Order Routing (SOR) architecture, Hashflow offers traders the best prices, access to over $8B in liquidity, and the ability to trade every token both interchain and cross-chain. Since launching in April 2021, Hashflow has cleared over $18B in total trade volume.
Today we meet with Varun Kumar, the Founder and CEO at Hashflow. We talk about Varun's background and how he developed Hashflow and came up with the idea for the concept.
For more information about Hashflow:
Website: https://www.hashflow.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/hashflow
Blog: https://blog.hashflow.com/
Docs: https://docs.hashflow.com/hashflow
Since 2014, CoinShares has been building the future of investing - creating Europe’s leading European digital assets investment firm and innovating the technology and infrastructure to enable access and power investment in the new digital economy.
Today we interview Lewis Fellas, head of Hedge Fund Solutions at CoinShares. We explore Lewis's background, thoughts on the market and insights he's learned along the way.
Website: https://coinshares.com/
Cboe is the world's go-to derivatives and exchange network, delivering cutting-edge trading, clearing and investment solutions to people around the world.
Cboe Digital is a US regulated exchange and clearinghouse for crypto spot and crypto derivatives.
John Palmer is the President of Cboe Digital.
Today we chat about Cboe Digital's product offering, future roadmap and John's career and background.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cboedigital?lang=en
Website: https://www.cboedigital.com/
Wintermute is a leading proprietary trading crypto market maker. They provide liquidity solutions across the digital asset eco-system.
They create liquidity on the world's best crypto exchanges and trading platforms. They use algorithmic and high-frequency trading methods to create markets; centralized crypto exchanges, DeFi, spot, derivatives, ETPs
They offer some of the most competitive prices via OTC (automated RFQ and with direct trader support) to funds, institutional OTC desks, trading platforms, miners and other institutions
They support listings and ongoing liquidity for high-potential crypto projects
The Crypto Volatility Index (CVI) is a decentralized VIX for crypto that allows users to efficiently trade market volatility without the directional risk of spot trading.
Today we talk about the background of CVI and the recent V3 launch.
Moshe and Yoni also chat about the technical protocol details behind CVI.
CVI Documentation: https://docs.cvi.finance/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/official_cvi
App: https://cvi.finance/
Nick Forster is the co-founder of DeFi options protocol Lyra.
Before founding Lyra, Nick was an equity options trader at SIG.
Today we discuss Lyra's latest protocol launch, Lyra V2. V2 is a central limit order book style protocol. Lyra has it's own app-chain built on L2 stack Optimism.
Part of our discussion involves exploring Lyra's portfolio margin, liquidation engine and mechanics around the Lyra app-chain.
To learn more about Lyra you can visit: https://www.lyra.finance/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lyrafinance
Blog: https://mirror.xyz/lyra.eth
Artur Sepp is the head quant at family office, Clearstar Labs.
Here Artur has a focus on delta neutral strategies in DeFi markets and CeFi crypto volatility venues, such as Deribit.
Artur has an extensive background in volatility trading and modeling for various firms including Bank of America and Julius Baer.
We talk about Artur's experience. His views on volatility trading and modeling. How he found his way into crypto trading and some of his strategies.
Recently written paper from Artur:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4606748
Book Recommendations
Euan Sinclair Books:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=euan+sinclair&crid=32WQ8TRFF9P45&sprefix=euan+sin%2Caps%2C184&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_8
Expected Returns:
https://www.amazon.com/Expected-Returns-Investors-Harvesting-Rewards/dp/1119990726/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1B484LK3JJN5C&keywords=expected+returns&qid=1701806342&sprefix=expected+%2Caps%2C168&sr=8-1&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.17d9e15d-4e43-4581-b373-0e5c1a776d5d
SwapGlobal provides derivatives – swaps and options – to US digital asset investors and hedgers, such as hedge funds, family offices, private equity funds, and bitcoin miners. SwapGlobal plans to register as a standalone swap-dealer with the CFTC and SEC.
Website: https://swapglobal.com/
Blog: https://swapglobal.com/insights
Books:
"Zurich Axioms" by Max Gunther
"Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" by Edwin Lefèvre and Edwin KLefevre
Today we talk with DK and Tolga from DeFi Options protocol Premia.
Premia is now on their version 3 protocol release.
Their platform provides a broad tradable offering including orderbook, RFQ, AMM/Pool and vaults. Users also have the rare flexibility to "spin-up" new option pools.
We also explore DK and Tolga's backgrounds before jumping into crypto and building Premia.
Lastly, we close out with their favorite books.
Born in Queens, New York, Terence An graduated from Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science and spent the next six years as a trader at Hudson River Trading.
After working on their more traditional US Equities HFT desk, he spent two years developing ultra-low latency strategies, situating him closer to the infrastructure, and ultimately sparking his interest in designing financial markets.
The transition to DeFi protocol design was swift and now he runs Itos Finance, the first protocol to empower anyone with access to structured products entirely on chain.
Itos is launching their testnet and raising a seed round in September 2023. In his spare time Terence likes to climb, cycle, reattempt his topology textbook, and when possible he spends time living abroad. However, his favorite pastime is of course displacing traditional finance.
For more information about Itos visit: https://www.itos.fi/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/itos_fi
Stephan Lutz is the CEO and CFO of BitMEX. He initially joined the company in 2021 as the CFO and was appointed as the group's CEO during late 2022 - one of crypto's most colourful periods. Stephan has been instrumental in driving the exchange's position as one of the crypto derivatives market leaders. It is under his direction that the decision was made for BitMEX to pivot back to its successful origins, with an emphasis placed upon providing professional and institutional traders with a derivatives trading platform that caters to their key needs of liquidity, performance and reliability.
Before BitMEX, he was a Senior Partner at PwC for close to a decade, where he advised many of the world's largest financial institutions. Prior to PwC, he held senior positions with Deutsche Börse. His career began in corporate finance and equities trading at Dresdner Bank AG (now Commerzbank AG). Stephan is married with twin boys and enjoys competing in dance in his leisure time.
Gordon is the managing director of sales and trading over at Genesis Trading.
Genesis launched the first OTC bitcoin trading desk in 2013. Since then, has grown to facilitate hundreds of billions in annual transactions.
Before joining Genesis Trading, Gordon was the director of derivatives at NWI, spending a little over 8-years there. Gordon has vast experience trading volatility in various asset classes and macro environments.
Today we talk about Gordon's background, option pricing nuances and the current crypto volatility landscape.
Gordon's Book Picks:
1) The Market Wizards
2) Investment Biker
3) The man who solved the market
LinkedIn
Gordon Grant
SOMA.Finance is a fully compliant DEX with AML/KYC infrastructure to allow users to both trade digital assets but also invest and launch new protocols/tokens.
Today we talk with Will Corkin, the co-founder of SOMA.Finance to discuss all the functionality of SOMA, the scheduled token launch and future roadmap.
Will also discusses his background and his career prior to SOMA.
For more information visit: https://www.soma.finance/about-us
Simon Ho is the founder and CEO of T3 Index.
T3 has created a competitor to the CBEO VIX index, known as the "Spike" index which is a volatility index derived from SPY options and currently traded on MIAX (Miami Stock Exchange)
Simon has an extensive background in options trading.
Before founding T3 Simon worked at JPM, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Deustsche Bank.
Today we talk about Simon's experience as a trader, founder and developments around T3's Bitcoin volatility index, known as "BitVol".
To learn more about T3 visit: https://t3index.com/
Thalex is a new derivatives exchange offering perpetuals, futures and future options on both BTC and ETH.
Visit: https://www.thalex.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ThalexGlobal
Today we speak with Hendrik Ghys, one of the co-founders of Thalex Exchange.
We journey into Hendrik's career in Crypto, including his experience valuing Bitstamp for acquisition.
We talk about the economics of a crypto exchange as well as the option like pay-off this type business implicitly resembles.
We chat about the features that Thalex offers, such as "delta-one rolls" and how this type of innovation can create liquidity.
We also discuss the crypto vol. landscape and some of the players in the space.
Panoptic is a new approach to DeFi options.
We explore Guillaume's journey from Physics into DeFi Options, as well as his academic background.
We talk about protocol specifics, such as the embedded optionality of Uniswap V3 positions and how those can be translated into a DeFi option protocol.
More about Panoptic:
The Panoptic protocol enables the minting, trading, and market-making of perpetual put and call options. All smart contracts are available 24/7 and users can interact with the Panoptic protocol without the need for intermediaries like banks, brokerage firms, clearinghouses, market makers, or centralized exchanges.
Website: https://panoptic.xyz/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/panoptic_xyz
Docs: https://panoptic.xyz/docs/intro
Numoen is a new approach to DeFi options.
We talk about protocol specifics with co-founder, Kyle Scott.
Numoen, an application for interacting with the Power Market Maker Protocol (PMMP), allows any user to hedge their Uniswap V3 LP position in three simple clicks.
PMMP is a suite of non-upgradable smart contracts that function without any trusted intermediaries. The protocol is designed for taking two underlying assets and creating a derivative asset with constant leverage, referred to as "Power Tokens". As a fully autonomous protocol, there are no admin functions and zero external dependencies.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/numoen
Docs: https://docs.numoen.com/
Website: https://www.numoen.com/
David Brickell is the Director of Institutional Sales at Paradigm, the RFQ block trading platform for crypto options.
We explore David's background as an economist and roles on the FX desks of various banks. We touch on his position at Lehman Brothers during the 2008 financial crisis.
David shares his current insights into the macro environment along with his ideas around BTC, ETH and crypto vol.
Joe Kruy is the head of institutional coverage at Paradigm.
Paradigm is a block-trading platform for crypto options, futures and perpetuals.
Paradigm executes nearly all of block-trades that are settled on Deribit.
Today we explore Joe's background at Deutsche Bank and J.P. Morgan in equity derivatives.
We also explore drivers of volume in the crypto options space along with a comparison to traditional options trading funds and strategies.
Joe's book recommendation is
Option Volatility and Pricing: Advanced Trading Strategies and Techniques
By Sheldon Natenberg
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jkruy26
Tommy Chen is the founder of Typus Finance.
Typus is a DeFi Options protocol built on top of a new L1 blockchain called SUI.
SUI and Typus will be going live to mainnet in May 2023.
Tommy started his career working at a family office as an asset manager.
Later, under the same family office, he began building OptiFi Labs a DeFi options protocol built on top of Solana.
After the FTX crash, Tommy began to built Typus Finance.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TypusFinance
Medium: https://medium.com/@TypusFinance
Website: https://typus.finance/
Laura has an extensive background in the crypto vol. space.
She worked at LedgerX , then Paradigm and now LedgerPrime.
Today we explore insights about crypto vol. and the different types of customers within each market segment.
We also explore some of Laura's career insights.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/VidiellaLaura
Pierino Ursone is the Head of Options over at Deribit, the worlds #1 crypto options exchange.
Pierino started his career in the 90's as a market-maker at Optiver.
After being a market-marker in the pits, Pierino managed a proprietary options book in the energy space.
Pierino Ursone is also the author of the #4 best selling option book globally "How to Calculate Options Prices and Their Greeks" published by Wiley.
Today we talk about Pierino's career background then dig into Deribit's launch of DVOL futures.
You can learn more about Pierino Ursone here:
Deribit - DVOL Contract Specifications
DVOL White Paper
LinkedIn
Twitter
"How to Calculate Options Prices and Their Greeks"
Delta Exchange is the second biggest Crypto Options exchange by volume and offers innovative derivatives products.
It offers daily, weekly and monthly expiry in Bitcoin & Ethereum Options.
Pankaj Balani (CEO/Co-founder of Delta Exchange), sits with us to chat about his background, the future of crypto Options markets, how to think through possible growth and retail demand for crypto Options.
Website:
https://www.delta.exchange/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/Delta_Exchange
TheRealMarty is a crypto vol. twitter OG.
Starting with right place at right time in terms of finding BTC (AKA price was low)
TheRealMarty went from nothing to learning about spot, TA, then Options (in that order)
Art school drop out turned vol trader.
He worked a small fund 1-2 years before opening up his own.
TheRealMarty now runs small boutique fund - specializing in selling options where he
trades mostly on deribit(options)/bitmex(futures)
Arisa is the co-founder and CEO of Cega. Cega is building exotic options structured products for investors that generate superior yield and offer built-in protection against market downturns. Cega is developing new capabilities in tech, token contracts, and data modeling that will enable the next evolution of DeFi derivatives. Arisa was previously a derivatives trader at UBS and a product marketing manager at Google. She is an advisor to the Japan Blockchain Association.
JP is CIO of Tras Mobian, a crypto derivatives market making firm. JP was previously a derivatives trader at various large traditional finance institutions, specifically on Equity exotic derivatives and Commodity derivatives. He was heading Commodity Index Trading at Societe Generale.
Matt (AKA: Cryptarbitrage) is currently working on the risk and product team at Deribit. Matt also created Deribit's option education series over the past two years.
https://insights.deribit.com/options-course/
Today we chat with Matt about his previous experience in professional poker, sport betting arbitrage and crypto exchange arbs.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cryptarbitrage
Samneet Chepal, CFA is a quant trader and analyst at Ledger Prime.
Today we discuss Sam's journey into the markets and quantitative analysis.
How did Sam find his way into a quant role versus a typical trading role and why did he end up being in crypto vol.
We also explore some differences between market-making and buy side.
For the report referenced in the podcast please click the link below
Report: Link Here
Twitter: https://twitter.com/samchepal
Today we speak with Johannes, a professional proprietary trader in Europe.
We explore Johannes experience learning how to trade early in his career.
We visit the crazy experiences he had in now defunct FX bucket-shops.
Johannes then explains his views and thoughts trading crypto futures spreads as well as his unique trading insights from experiences in traditional business.
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.volmex.finance/
Docs: https://docs.volmex.finance/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/volmexfinance
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 cross markets.
Twitter: @PowerTradeHQ
Website: https://power.trade/about/
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. trader at GSR.
We talk about market strategies and the current crypto vol. environment.
For more information about GSR check :
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GSR_io
Website: https://www.gsr.io/
Chris Twitter: https://twitter.com/CryptoDeFiGuy
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 option buyers to purchase that upside.
Today we discuss Reggie and Jake's backgrounds before starting hook.xyz, current protocol design and recent success since recently launching on ETH mainnet.
For more information visit:
https://www.hook.xyz/
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 about his trading background, important trading wisdom he's learned throughout his career and how he found his way into the crypto vol. space.
For more information on Squeeth and Opyn visit:
https://www.opyn.co/
https://medium.com/opyn
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 Officer at Deribit.
We talk about Shaun's previous work experience, his day-to-day at Deribit and take a detailed look at major events, such as the ETH 2.0 merge.
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 expanded on this to provide access to a wide variety of digital assets, as we work towards our vision of enabling access to the crypto-economy across Asia.
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 Sequoia and Deutsche Bank.
Prior to joining Zerocap Toby was in charge of $1 billion in investments within UBS.
Toby’s role at zerocap is to have responsibility for the entire trading book of risk, identifying opportunities across the whole digital asset realm, risk management, design and implementation of structured products and solutions.
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-trading platform, thinkorswim, later sold to TD-Ameritrade for $750 million.
Leveraging over 20 years of experience as a Market Maker for the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and one of the original OEX traders in the S&P 100 Index pit, Tom pursued his vision to educate retail investors in options trading and build a superior trading platform and a brokerage firm that specialized in options. With that vision in mind, tastytrade was founded in 2011. Six years later, tastyworks launched with Scott Sheridan at the helm as CEO.
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 looking at in both crypto and crypto volatility.
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 allowed him to be a driving force in adopting quantitative techniques in valuation, risk management and trading analysis in these businesses. He received his Ph.D. in physics from The University of Texas at Austin in 2004.
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/