Crypto Options Unplugged

In this week's episode, Imran and David host Katia Babbar and William McGhee the co-founders of Immersive Finance. They discuss how they are meeting the needs of institutional players in the crypto space in terms of rich, granular data sets and detailed risk management capabilities after many decades in traditional finance on the FX side. Katia also explains that they want to cater for the growing crypto-structured products market where banks will ultimately be the front runners and need top-tier systems to be able to manage more complex and dynamic risks. David gives his macro rundown and Imran discusses how hedges paid off last week and why he was monetizing some, especially on ETH.

In this week’s episode Imran and David host Johnny Fry, Head of Digital Asset Strategy at Clearbank. They discuss how blockchain technology is changing the infrastructure across financial markets and improving efficiency and transparency. The strong use cases behind stable coins and tokenization are not going away. And Johnny explains how it is a matter of when and not if the entire financial system adopts this technology. On the macro front, David breaks down the recent wobble in markets in the context of quarter-end liquidity drain and Imran summarises what the option flows are indicating for the next few weeks.

In this week’s episode, Imran and David discuss the recent drop in crypto prices and whether or not the short-term bottom is in yet. David cautions against the impact China maybe having in crypto markets but overall feels that the Mnt. Gox distribution is priced in. Imran catches up with Andrew from Thinking Greeks to get his thoughts on crypto vol and the best opportunities to play in options right now.

In this week's episode David and Imran welcome Dennis Ehlert, a derivatives trader from Amina Bank. They discuss the broader trends in crypto markets in terms of institutional adoption and how we are still very early on in building out infrastructure for real money flows. David gives his 30k ft view on the latest macro developments. Imran and Dennis highlight the main flows they are seeing in options this week as spot prices look weak. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and comment on YouTube with #deribitgiveaway to enter our draw to win a Deribit sweater.

In this week's episode, David and Imran discuss the recent developments in the US labor market that have created headwinds for crypto prices in the near term and ahead of key inflation data this week. Imran also has an in-depth chat with Sean McNulty from Arbelos Capital and Douglas Comin from XBTO about crypto vol markets and how they differ from other more traditional asset classes such as FX and Equities. Imran also gives his run down on the latest flows he's seeing this week in crypto options.

In this week's episode, apart from the usual macro, crypto, and volatility round-up, Imran catches up with Arbelos Capital Co-founder Shiliang Tang and trader Sean McNulty to discuss what trends they are seeing in the institutional crypto vol space. It was an enlightening discussion with some very seasoned players in the market who have become one of the dominant market makers in crypto options.

In this week's episode David And Imran discuss the swift policy shifts we have been seeing around crypto regulation in the US fuelled by Donald Trump embracing crypto in his campaign. The Biden administration has likely realised that they have no choice but to lighten up regulation to appeal to the 50 million or so US voters who use cryptocurrencies. Overall the landscape looks ripe for the start of a new ALT season, with ETH leading the way as we await the start of spot ETF trading in the months ahead. Imran explains what the moves in crypto vol and skew are saying about the options market's take on the recent price action with a flippening in longer dated call skew towards ETH. David is as bullish as ever given recent regulatory moves and struggles to see a material downside scenario in the near term.

In this week's episode, Imran and David welcome James Van Straten from Cryptoslate as they take a look into the world of on-chain analytics. James writes reports analyzing these important metrics to help traders forecast trends in crypto assets. This unique approach and the granularity of the flow data that is unavailable in TradFi markets has become somewhat of a must-have tool for serious crypto investors over the years. They also dive into the latest macro and crypto headlines including the ETH ETF that has suddenly come back on everyone's radar. Imran explains how much the event risk has distorted the ETH vol surface and what flows they have been seeing.

In this week's episode, Imran and David welcome Andrew Melville, volatility research analyst at Block Scholes. They take a deep dive into what Andrew has been seeing in crypto volatility trends and how institutions are trading volatility in this rapidly growing asset class. Imran breaks down why options traders use butterflies to buy or sell convexity and discusses the reason why the volatility smile may be trading so flat. David summarises the macro news that is moving markets such as China unleashing more stimulus and key US CPI data due this week.---

In this week’s episode Imran and David discuss the game changing macro developments that triggered a sharp bounce in crypto and risk assets. The FOMC was more dovish than investors had feared as rate hikes were taken off the table and a larger taper of QT means more liquidity to drive risk assets higher.  Imran runs through his usual crypto vol insights which showed a reduction in BTC skew as put hedges were monetised and implied vols falls despite heightened realised moves. The trade idea they both like is long call calendars on ETH as ETF rulings get punted into July, making May likely to be a non-event