Opium

Opium is a new platform for launching and trading cryptocurrency derivatives.

Having begun operations in May 2020, Opium uses Ethereum to run a decentralized derivatives marketplace in which any cryptocurrency owner can participate.

The aim of the platform is to democratize access to financial derivatives while using the benefits that decentralization affords traders over legacy alternatives.

Opium’s in-house token, OPIUM, launched in January 2021 and will fulfil various roles mostly centered around platform governance. Active users will be able to vote on some of the most important decisions involved in the platform’s operations.

Opium has a team involved in the creation of decentralized finance (DeFi) tools since 2017. These include three products built on top of the Opium protocol.

The platform’s CEO and co-founder is Andrey Belyakov. A member of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute, Belyakov’s experience lies in the professional derivative trading and fund management sectors, in which he has over 20 years’ experience with assets under management portfolios of €20 million and over. He has been involved in the cryptocurrency sector since 2015.

Arjan van der Kooij, Opium’s second co-founder, is a Dutch entrepreneur and private investor with a focus in IT and technology startups.

Opium in its official whitepaper states that it aims to become the “Bloomberg of decentralized derivatives.”

Built on the Ethereum network, its platform allows anyone with a wallet to begin trading crypto derivatives and build and launch associated contracts.

Begun before the DeFi movement appeared, a longer-term strategy has always been to attract traders away from traditional derivatives platforms. When the first Bitcoin (BTC) derivatives launched in the form of futures in late 2017, the floodgates were opened, but it took a long time for genuine interest to soar and for derivatives to become part of the cryptocurrency landscape. Opium intends to speed up the process by democratizing entry.

Trades on the Opium platform attract an optional derivative fee, which if implemented sees 90% go to the creator and 10% retained by Opium.

Future plans include the launch of a V2 exchange, as well as so-called Layer 2 functionality which will decrease the likelihood of users facing losses when Ethereum gas fees become overly high.

• Read more about Uniswap (UNI) here.
• Read more about Aave (AAVE) here.
• Learn more about crypto derivatives markets here with Alexandria, CoinMarketCap’s dedicated education resource.
• Interested in more information about crypto? Check out the CoinMarketCap blog.

The in-house token of Opium is OPIUM. Built as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, OPIUM will be released according to a specific roadmap after launch.

Out of a total supply of 100 million, 60% of the tokens will go towards an active users fund, with users themselves deciding how many tokens will be available for release at set intervals. Users will also decide on what level of engagement constitutes being “active.”

Another 16% of the supply will go towards investors and advisors with a broad two-year vesting schedule.

The remaining 24% will be split — 14% will go to the Opium team, while 10% will form a so-called Governance Reserve Fund, once again under the control of users via decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

Opium completed a professional independent audit of its operations using SmartDec, the results of which are publicly available online.

SmartDec offers a disclaimer that a single audit is not enough to be entirely certain of the security Opium’s code.

For everyday users, standard risks include those involved with derivatives more broadly. Without due diligence and a suitable strategy, it is possible to lose large amounts of money very quickly during times of market volatility.

CoinMarketCap has a dedicated introduction to crypto derivatives which offers more information.

OPIUM is not yet freely tradeable as of the time of writing this page (January 2021), as distribution has only just started. As of Jan. 28, 2021, OPIUM is available on Zerion. This situation will soon change and the information will be updated as the token becomes supported by more exchanges.

If you’re still a cryptocurrency newbie, read our easy guide to buying Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.

The Opium protocol is a robust and universal platform that allows users to create, settle, and trade decentralized derivatives on Ethereum. A token represents every option on Opium, and it can be traded, sent, or stored in cold wallets. The system provides robust and universal financial primitives on-chain. It also allows for more advanced features like order books, combined orders, and market-making features to happen off-chain by leveraging meta-transactions.

The Opium protocol currently supports two products; swap.rate and opium.exchange. In simple terms, swap.rate enables users to create derivatives. On the other hand, the Opium.exchange is an open trading exchange specifically designed for decentralized derivatives.

Arjan Van Der Kooij and Andrey Belyakov founded the Opium protocol. Before creating this, Arjan has been a serial entrepreneur and private investor with 20 years of experience in business management. On the other hand, Andrey has been a professional derivative trader with ten years of experience to his belt. He is also a member of the CFA Institute.

Currently, the financial derivative market is the largest in the market but has always been under the control of banks. Other centralized financial institutions also own a large chunk of the derivative market. These entities provide the clearing, settlement, and trading of derivatives. The goal of the Opium Protocol is to move these traditional functions of centralized entities to the blockchain. By moving these traditional functions to a trustless, distributed, and immutable system, Opium will lower the cost and increase security. It will also make it possible to accommodate unbanked individuals in the world’s financial system. As an Opium user, you can be an investor, a hedger, speculator, margin trader, or arbitrageurs.

In an interview with CoinDesk, Andrey Belyakov said that they created the protocol to solve three specific problems experienced in the traditional derivative market. These problems include:

• Transparency problems
• Cost efficiency, and
• A barrier to entry.

There must be a very good reason(s) to make us abandon the traditional players in the derivatives market. What are the things that set the Opium ecosystem apart from the centralized financial entities in the market? The Opium system is built to be compatible with both the DeFi market and the professional market. Most of the derivative protocols we have on the DeFi space today bring theoretical risks with them. They do this by using on-chain liquidity pools or the use of automated market makers (AMMs). Opium provides a robust and simple on-chain infrastructure that users can leverage off-chain.

The implication of having an alternative to on-chain infrastructure is the presence of more complex features. Some of these features include advanced derivatives, market-making strategies, order books, arbitrage combined orders, etc. All the features mentioned above are implemented at the layer 2 level. As a user, you can create decentralized derivatives benefiting from a risk profile that is more similar to the traditional financial products. However, these products may appeal more to a broader range of users than the on-chain derivatives.

The Opium protocol is live on the Ethereum mainnet, and SamrtDec audits it. Thus, it gives users the peace of mind necessary to try out new things with DeFi. There are currently at least three working products that are built on the Opium Exchange. These products have been assisting about four independent establishments in bringing their derivatives to the market by leveraging the Opium Protocol.

The Opium.Exchange product is a non-custodial platform built for decentralized derivatives. You can trade, hedge, or invest without the need for intermediaries. It also allows you to benefit from high-speed orders on meta-transactions. You will also enjoy secure settlement on-chain.

Every position created using the Opium Protocol is represented by ERC-721o tokens. These tokens are specifically designed to help you trade financial instruments. The Opium team created the tokens by combining the ERC-20 and ERC-721 standards with more functionality. Users can combine these tokens into portfolios, and they are backward compatible with the ERC-721stanbdard. The implication is that these tokens can be used in existing ecosystems. The ERC-721o standard has primary portfolio functions which include the following:

• Compose
• Decompose, and
• Recompose

A portfolio is composed of the entire portfolio that can be managed or traded as a single ERC-721o token, hence saving gas fees. The portfolio decomposes when the tokens used to compose the portfolio are minted again and stored on your balance. You can recompose a portfolio by removing or adding to/from an already existing portfolio. However, you must ensure that you do that in a gas-efficient way.

This is a platform designed to help users hedge against or take advantage of the interest rate fluctuations in the DeFi lending and borrowing space. It also allows users to create contracts for interest rate swaps. One stream of future interest payments is swapped for another based on the stipulated principal amount.

The Opium Protocol is undoubtedly revolutionizing the derivatives market. Without millions of dollars, you cannot make derivatives, but Opium is changing all that. Now, everyone can run his own derivates in the most efficient way possible. You can follow the Opium project on social to stay up to date with the happenings in the derivatives market.

What Is Opium (OPIUM)?

Having begun operations in May 2020, Opium uses Ethereum to run a decentralized derivatives marketplace in which any cryptocurrency owner can participate.

The aim of the platform is to democratize access to financial derivatives while using the benefits that decentralization affords traders over legacy alternatives.

Opium’s in-house token, OPIUM, launched in January 2021 and will fulfil various roles mostly centered around platform governance. Active users will be able to vote on some of the most important decisions involved in the platform’s operations.

Who Are the Founders of Opium?

Opium has a team involved in the creation of decentralized finance (DeFi) tools since 2017. These include three products built on top of the Opium protocol.

The platform’s CEO and co-founder is Andrey Belyakov. A member of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute, Belyakov’s experience lies in the professional derivative trading and fund management sectors, in which he has over 20 years’ experience with assets under management portfolios of €20 million and over. He has been involved in the cryptocurrency sector since 2015.

Arjan van der Kooij, Opium’s second co-founder, is a Dutch entrepreneur and private investor with a focus in IT and technology startups.

What Makes Opium Unique?

Opium in its official whitepaper states that it aims to become the “Bloomberg of decentralized derivatives.”

Built on the Ethereum network, its platform allows anyone with a wallet to begin trading crypto derivatives and build and launch associated contracts.

Begun before the DeFi movement appeared, a longer-term strategy has always been to attract traders away from traditional derivatives platforms. When the first Bitcoin (BTC) derivatives launched in the form of futures in late 2017, the floodgates were opened, but it took a long time for genuine interest to soar and for derivatives to become part of the cryptocurrency landscape. Opium intends to speed up the process by democratizing entry.

Trades on the Opium platform attract an optional derivative fee, which if implemented sees 90% go to the creator and 10% retained by Opium.

Future plans include the launch of a V2 exchange, as well as so-called Layer 2 functionality which will decrease the likelihood of users facing losses when Ethereum gas fees become overly high.

Related Pages:

Read more about Uniswap (UNI) here.

Read more about Aave (AAVE) here.

Learn more about crypto derivatives markets here with Alexandria, CoinMarketCap’s dedicated education resource.

How Many Opium (OPIUM) Coins Are There in Circulation?

The in-house token of Opium is OPIUM. Built as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, OPIUM will be released according to a specific roadmap after launch.

Out of a total supply of 100 million, 60% of the tokens will go towards an active users fund, with users themselves deciding how many tokens will be available for release at set intervals. Users will also decide on what level of engagement constitutes being “active.”

Another 16% of the supply will go towards investors and advisors with a broad two-year vesting schedule.

The remaining 24% will be split — 14% will go to the Opium team, while 10% will form a so-called Governance Reserve Fund, once again under the control of users via decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

How Is the Opium Network Secured?

Opium completed a professional independent audit of its operations using SmartDec, the results of which are publicly available online.

SmartDec offers a disclaimer that a single audit is not enough to be entirely certain of the security Opium’s code.

For everyday users, standard risks include those involved with derivatives more broadly. Without due diligence and a suitable strategy, it is possible to lose large amounts of money very quickly during times of market volatility.

CoinMarketCap has a dedicated introduction to crypto derivatives which offers more information.

Where Can You Buy Opium (OPIUM)?

OPIUM is not yet freely tradeable as of the time of writing this page (January 2021), as distribution has only just started. As of Jan. 28, 2021, OPIUM is available on Zerion. This situation will soon change and the information will be updated as the token becomes supported by more exchanges.