Quedex is a new entry into the bitcoin derivatives market.  The product is pretty good on both the options and futures side, but the necessary volumes are just not yet there for regular  traders. One point in Quedex’s favor (arguably), is their Gibraltar license, which might entice institutional volume. While Bitmex and even Deribit have greater volumes, their lack of respectable license is probably a big issue for non-retail traders.   

Opening an account

Some might consider it a positive thing that Quedex is regulated by Gibraltar, which is widely considered one of the most reputable EU-located licensing jurisdiction.  A large negative is Quedex KYC requirements, a process managed by coinfirm.io. As far as mainstream KYC requirements go, the coinfirm process is pretty good. However compared to deribit and bitmex, Quedex’s direct competition, this is a big negative, as both require only an email to begin trading.  However, if trading with a regulated firm is important to you, we suppose this is a small price to pay.

On the other hand, as Quedex is limited to bitcoin deposits they really could skip the KYC stuff for now, as larger products have done in their quest to build liquidity.

Futures Trading  

We are not huge fans of the futures trading platform, but perhaps that is simply due to our familiarity with bitmex.  Any event, we don’t like how the order book is displayed and there is no order depth charting – perhaps due to lack of volume.

And that really is the major issue with Quedex – there is not enough liquidity to justify meaningful trading with Quedex at the moment. Above for instance, you can see that the order book has a total buy quantity of 1,000 contracts – equivalent to $1,000, with a sell quantity of 100 contracts for the June 29th expiration.

Options Trading

If Quedex is going to make it in this wild world of cryptocurrency derivatives, it will be due to their options platform, simply because there is no competitor that has achieved a critical mass of trading volume.  And as far as the product goes, Quedex has a good platform.

The fees are low, strike prices are in $500 increments (opposed to deribit which is every $1000), and the trading interface is pretty intuitive.

As of publication of this article, they still have not managed to reach parity with Deribit however, and bitmex is lurking in the background.

You might be better off elsewhere if:

You are more into futures than options.  

As it stands, there really is not much reason to trade futures on Quedex over market leaders like bitmex.  Not only does Bitmex have $3 billion+ daily trading volume, there is no KYC requirement.

You do not care about the Gibraltar license.

The only reason as of this current moment that one might choose Quedex over Deribit is due to the former’s Gib license.  In terms of liquidity and KYC hassle, Deribit currently wins out.

Definitely makes sense to do a bit of comparison shopping.  Have a look at the best futures and options 

Bottom Line

Quedex has come late to the bitcoin-derivatives party, and it will be difficult for them to build the liquidity necessary to develop into a realistic option for trading, let alone a market leader.  However, the market is still immature, meaning that it really is anybody’s ballgame. There is little to differentiate Quedex as yet from larger competition, aside from a Gibraltar license in which retail traders will probably find little value.