Key Facts

• Bybit has partnered with Orbit Markets, a leading options market maker, to launch a dedicated options market for Tether Gold (XAUT), ensuring institutional-grade liquidity for traders to hedge risk and speculate on gold prices.
• The XAUT options are European-style contracts settled in USDT, with each contract corresponding to one XAUT token, which represents one troy ounce of physical gold.
• Jimmy Yang, co-founder of Orbit Markets, stated that "As tokenization accelerates, we believe the distinction between crypto and TradFi will continue to narrow," expressing excitement about growing interest in traditional finance derivatives within crypto.
• Bybit's launch of XAUT options brings this established asset class on-chain for the first time on a major crypto platform, following smaller platforms like CoinCall which launched similar options in November 2024.
• The global gold options market is a multi-billion-dollar industry, dominated by exchanges like the CME and India's MCX, with a significant portion of volume traded over-the-counter (OTC).