Jun 1, 2021
Surverying The Field: Part 2
Lets take a second look at other Binary Option protocols upcoming and now live. See how BIOPset stacks up.
Missed part 1? Check it out here: https://medium.com/biopset/the-state-of-on-chain-binary-options-346164101f38
Before we begin lets first review part 1.
- Spectre.ai, closest to BIOPset that I’ve found yet. Unfortunately they require signup(at least when I try to join) and thus are not a permissionless protocol offering few advantage over centralized binary option trading. They also require a deposit before trading and while they do seem to be A+ binary options by our definition they are solving none of the pain points that led me to want to create BIOPset.
- Synthetix options aren’t the same thing, they take place over a long period of time (sometimes over 40 weeks)
- ValueNetwork.live, ($VNTW)our dearest comrade in the journey to liberate binary option trading from centralized platforms. They are still in MVP mode and seem to be chugging along. TIL they’ve got a competitor tracker spreadsheet and we made the list! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gYgYh7kqnFVdmRVQLesIwl9RkC__ekyxlUw3IeI7gjI/edit#gid=0
So rather the rehash those or spend time on the ones that ValueNetwork has already looked into lets take a peak at a few they haven’t spotted yet:
Kaki Options
“Gameplay”
I like that they seem to be building their binary options into a game. Its a bit disappointing that they will only be available on layer 2 but with a cute tomato and what seems like a big well educated team I think Kaki is going to be someone to watch for future surveys once their testnet app is online later this month.
DivergenceDefi
“A Decentralized Platform for Volatility Derivatives” ($DIVER soon)
Like Kaki, this protocol is planning to have something online later this month. They also are taking a gamified approach using SPEAR and SHIELD tokens to represent traders bullish or bearish bets. By tokenifying positions Divergence is the only protocol on this list that allows a secondary market to be established for trading these positions before settlement. This is a big deal and makes Divergence the most innovative of the 3 new protocols listed today.
Oiler.network
“Blockchain native derivates”($OIL)
Unlike every other project mentioned Oiler’s stated use case is trading on the change in the price of gas or block difficulty and other fully blockchain degen kinda things. No need to bet on the price of ETH or BTC/USD they skip straight to the important questions: is gas going up or down.
I was happy to learn about this as from day 1 we have aimed to make BIOPset upgradeable. As it stands now BIOPset is also ready to operate option trading on the price of gas or block difficulty just like oiler network does. This is without changing any contracts at all. We simply enable a new oracle from the few that offer these feeds like API3.
As far as I can tell they don’t have a protocol ready or a testnet app for us to try out yet but there are some things that OilerNetwork is teaching me a masterclass in, number one is marketing. There token is by far the most valuable of any binary option protocol I can find, and they don’t have a protocol yet. Being that BIOPset can offer all the main functionality I’ve seen them describe and more this one makes me very bullish and ready to dive into spreading the word more about our upcoming launch.
Conclusions
DivergenceDefi is the only competitor we’ve found that is doing anything BIOPset doesn’t already do (fully tokenized and tradable option positions). I think this is cool.
Oiler network clearly knows how to hype their coin. Theres no doubt about that, I’m not sure about their protocol but know they’ve spent the longest time of anyone in developing it.
I don’t see binary option settlement onchain as a entirely zero sum environment. Most of these protocols are offering very different products from each other, whether its different feeds to trade on, different derivative structure, mechanisms that vary, or being on different chains.
Everytime I do one of these studies of other protocols I’m left feeling even more excited and eager to have BIOPset online and trade some binary options!
