Volatility derivatives are coming to DeFi with backing from several VC giants.
A number of venture capital giants have completed a financing round for Ethereum-based volatility and derivatives protocol Volmex Finance.
According to a March 17 announcement from Volmex Labs, the financing round was contributed to by several leading decentralized finance venture capital firms including Alameda Research, Three Arrows Capital, Robot Ventures, CMS Holdings, IOSG Ventures, D64 Ventures, and Fourth Revolution Capital in addition to a number of individual angel investors including BarnBridge’s Tyler Ward. The amount raised was undisclosed.
4RCapital co-founder Keegan Selby posted on Twitter:
“Extremely excited to back Volmex Finance as they introduce volatility indices, a core financial primitive of the quadrillion dollar global derivatives market, to Decentralized Finance.”
The project, introduced in December 2020, aims to bring volatility hedging to Ethereum which will unlock a number of new DeFi applications and investment opportunities.
It has launched an index designed to measure the 30-day implied volatility of Ethereum called the ETHV Index v1. It can be used in a similar way to the Chicago Board Options Exchange’s VIX which provides an estimate of short-term U.S. stock market volatility.
When Ethereum market volatility is low, investors can buy ETHV Index v1 futures or calls, selling them when market volatility increases. The team behind Volmex Finance explained:
“Volatility derivatives are a core pillar of modern finance, as they provide a cost-effective means for hedging market volatility risk.”
In order to avoid the expensive fees associated with transacting on the main Ethereum network, the protocol will leverage Optimism layer-two scaling technology to make index querying and future trading functionality cheaper and faster.
Optimism has been deployed on a number of DeFi platforms recently including Synthetix, MakerDAO, and it’s rumored to provide the scaling for Uniswap’s highly anticipated version 3.
Volmex also has a Bitcoin-based derivative product called the BTC Index v1 whereby traders can leverage the protocol to express a view on the expected volatility of the underlying asset.
