Maltese-based leading cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume Binance is ramping up its effort to launch a crypto-derivatives platform this month. This week, the exchange revealed the acquisition of the Seychelles-based spot-trading and derivatives market platform JEX. As part of the deal, Binance will rebrand the platform to Binance JEX and include it into its ever-expanding ecosystem. Binance announced in a press release published earlier this week:
JEX will join the Binance ecosystem as Binance JEX and focus on further building the crypto-asset derivatives market.
Binance acquisition of JEX comes amidst its efforts to launch its highly anticipated futures platform. Over the past few weeks, the leading exchange has launched a margin trading platform and this month is anticipating to launch the futures platform. In preparation, the exchange has launched a blind test competition to vote on a futures platform with 10,000 BNB reward to voters of the winning platform. The platforms labeled A and B will see the exchange offer two interfaces one of them being the newly acquired JEX platform and the other being an internally developed futures platform interface in a bid to discover which one appeals to Binance traders and hence focus its attention towards.
A Binance spokesperson said this about the competition:
We think open competition is a great way to test out the products’ usability. Through the competition, we hope to fully review the two products in terms of market feedback, scalability and liquidation model design. It will help with the ultimate decision making.
Despite the rebrand, Binance JEX will continue to offer the same services which include the spot market trading which so far supports three assets, EOS, Ethereum, and Bitcoin. JEX also supports options trading as well as perpetual contracts. Binance co-founder Yi He said;
We hold an open mind and welcome more partners to join the Binance ecosystem. We look forward to delivering more innovative derivative products in the future as Binance JEX.
Cryptocurrency affiliated derivatives platforms are seeing a growing interest as cryptocurrency becomes more popular. In America, the derivatives market has been stifled due to regulatory limitations which may see several of the investors look elsewhere to platforms not regulated in the United States such as Binance, BitMEX, and Deribit. Highly anticipated platform such as Bakkt and Bitcoin ETF offerings from notable companies such as Van Eck have been delayed multiple times. Investors will not be waiting around for the products to be launched. Leading businesses such as Binance and Huobi are ramping up efforts to attract these US-based clients who are looking to invest in the arguably more lucrative derivatives platforms as the US gets its act together.
