Panama-based cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform Deribit announced in a recent tweet that it will soon add support for Solana (SOL) trading.
The first European options with SOL will go live on the exchange on May 9. The platform will offer daily, weekly and monthly options.
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Solana futures will launch as early as this Friday, according to the announcement.
The involvement of SOL options is prime since it highlights the growing institutional interest in cryptocurrency. It is worth noting that institutional traders account for the majority of the firm’s customer base (almost 80%).
Before that, it only gave options in Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two largest cryptocurrencies by market cap with the largest level of liquidity.
Deribit remains the dominant exchange for cryptocurrency options trading. According to data provided by CoinGlass, it accounts for 91% of open interest in Bitcoin options. Chicago-based CME Group comes in second place with roughly 4%.
Last year, SOL emerged as Wall Street’s favorite Ethereum alternative. As reported by U.Today, Bank of America predicted that Solana could become the leading payment protocol due to its high transaction throughput, competing with such legacy companies as Visa.
Solana is also gaining traction in the non-fungible token (NFT) sector. Earlier this month, leading NFT marketplace OpenSea added support for the network.
After observing tremendous price gains in 2021, this year has been underwhelming for the SOL token, which is also the case for the broader cryptocurrency market. The token is presently trading at $99 on main pot exchanges. It is down 61% from its record high.