Deribit, the world’s largest crypto options exchange, handles roughly $150–200 billion in monthly trading volume, with options representing two-thirds of its activity. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Dubai, Deribit maintains an 80% market share in crypto options, serving predominantly institutional clients (85%) with sophisticated trading needs.
Growth and Market Leadership
Luuk Strijers, CEO at Deribit, attributes the company’s sustained leadership to first-mover advantage in crypto options, which became increasingly relevant as institutional investors sought hedging and yield strategies similar to traditional markets. As well as superior technology, offering high-throughput, low-latency trading and advanced portfolio margining with cross-collateral capabilities.
As the market evolved, institutional adoption grew through improved regulation and familiarity with derivatives. Deribit capitalized on this by maintaining high performance, product depth, and institutional-grade infrastructure.
The Fireblocks Infrastructure
Deribit began working with Fireblocks in 2021, initially to support select wallets such as Solana. Over time, the relationship deepened as Deribit transitioned to Fireblocks-managed wallets across all assets, citing ease of integration and operational security. The Off Exchange solution was a breakthrough—allowing clients to retain control of assets while enabling Deribit to trade efficiently and securely.
This approach enabled Deribit to scale operations, integrate new custodians seamlessly, and save months of technical and due diligence effort per onboarding. The collaboration has also driven mutual client acquisition through shared integrations and technology.
Driving Collaborative Innovation
Deribit relies on Fireblocks for its uncompromising security standards with granular transaction policies and multi-tier (hot, warm, cold) wallet architecture. Fireblocks’ flexibility to support different client custody preferences between regulated custodians, off-chain settlement, or advanced self-custody setups is another value driver.
Collaborative innovation, especially around Off Exchange, has helped Deribit and Fireblocks expand market share and deliver better institutional solutions. “The Off Exchange solution is extremely powerful. It lets clients keep control of their wallets while we still have access to assets, making the model both efficient and scalable,” Strijers shared.
“Fireblocks has saved us countless operational hours by simplifying custodian integrations and onboarding processes that would normally take months.”
Luuk Strijers
CEO
Future Outlook
Following its acquisition by Coinbase, Deribit aims to integrate Coinbase infrastructure and balance sheet capabilities while expanding its product suite, adding more options, perpetuals, and collateral types.
The team will also further reduce trading latency from milliseconds to microseconds to cement its leadership in performance and liquidity. Fireblocks remains central to this roadmap as Deribit scales wallet support, product breadth, and institutional partnerships.
“What has kept us with Fireblocks is the continuous focus on quality, security features, and transaction policies. We like to partner with high-quality providers and Fireblocks offers exactly what our clients need.”
Luuk Strijers
CEO
