Galaxy Capital-backed institutional trading and portfolio management platform Caspian is launching trading in cryptocurrency derivatives.

Caspian announced Wednesday that it has integrated its platform with the Deribit exchange to offer futures and options (F&O) trading in crypto assets.

Deribit offers futures and options trading for bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), and also provides another perpetual swap product for bitcoin. The exchange does not charge for deposits and withdrawals and "up to 100x leverage", Caspian said.

Robert Dykes, Caspian CEO, said:

The Caspian platform is connected to Deribit through an application programming interface (API) that supports “high volumes with ultra-low latency,” and provides traders with access to Deribit’s full options order book, Caspian said..

Caspian is a joint project between Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency investment firm Kenetic Capital and the U.S.-based based trading systems firm Tora.

The project raised $16 million in funding via a token presale last September, with backing from Kenetic Capital, Galaxy Capital, Octagon Strategy, Global Advisors and others.

Kenetic Capital managing director David Wills called Caspian “a frictionless on-ramp for crypto traders” at the time.

Back in 2017, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and CME Group both famously launched futures products.

Financial markets technology platform LevelTradingField launched a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange last August using the ethereum blockchain. And, in December, cryptocurrency exchange OKEx launched a bitcoin derivative product with no expiry date, meaning that positions can be held indefinitely.

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