With an increasing institutional interest in crypto, ZUBR announced on Monday the launch of its digital asset derivatives platform.
Per the press release shared with Finance Magnates, the platform will list perpetual contracts with leverage up to 20x.
These instruments are very similar to traditional futures contracts and grant investors the ability to profit from selling digital assets, either short or long, similar to futures contracts. However, unlike futures contracts, perpetual contracts have no expiration date.
“The derivatives market is suffocated by players who marginalize smaller traders by offering preferential speeds and trading tools only to those who can pay them,” Ilgar Alekperov, chief executive of ZUBR, said.
An arbitrage hub
The Gibraltar-registered firm is aiming to become the arbitrage hub for crypto trading. With its low fees for trading, the platform is also enabling players from all segments to challenge the “oligopoly of bigger players.”
“A lot of traders feel that the crypto derivatives market is damaged by the maker rebate structure and multiple fee discounts from exchanges that hurt the overall market liquidity, price discovery, spreads and market participant structure. We want to nurture a healthy environment, where traders compete with skill and not with fee scales and rebates,” Alekperov added.
The platform also detailed that it has already handled $25 million worth of trades since hours of its launch.
To offer services in a regulated environment, the platform will also tap services Crystal Blockchain, a platform developed by Bitfury. With its risk scoring and transaction tracking solution, ZUBR will ensure its compliance and due diligence measures.
Despite all promises, the new platform will face major players in the industry as competition. Mammoths like Binance and Huobi are all offering such derivatives contracts lately, given the increasing demand.
Though operating according to the laws of Gibraltar, ZUBR has kept its infrastructure in London for an edge over its competition.
“Our high-speed LD4 infrastructure with cross-connections and points of presence near major crypto exchanges allows all our clients to be faster and more competitive per se. Those who chose to co-locate with us in London will get the unprecedented execution speed as well as faster market data from other exchanges opening up more arbitrage strategies. In essence, our clients pay less for faster and reliable execution,” the CEO said.