DE DERIVE Derive (Derive Protocol) Loading... : Investor Sentiment and Bull/Bear Views

Yan argues onchain options are the last major crypto primitive that has not taken off, currently near-zero versus massive potential. RWA growth onchain creates assets to option and lets market makers hedge/provide liquidity; better designs such as Hypercall hedging through Hyperliquid and Derive's institutional front end solve past cold-start problems. He names Hypercall, Derive, Lighter, Paradex, Dime, and Synapse as early contenders, with Derive the current leader but not complacent, and Dime/Synapse/Derive cheap relative to a huge TAM.

He bought Derive when it was around a $40-$60M market cap at roughly 4 cents because it was the only real place to trade options on-chain and he believed options were not obsolete versus perps. He argues options need mature perp markets to hedge, onchain options volume can 5x-10x, and Derive deserves a much higher multiple; he still holds and thinks it could be valued more like an Ethereum mainnet derivatives play, potentially 10x higher.

Crypto options are underpriced after the perp boom. Perps are linear leverage, while options offer convexity, hedging, premium selling, and novel payouts, so perps will not fully eat the options market. Derive is the best options protocol: it survived the bear market, refused a buyout, diluted to keep building, grew open interest/fees, is doing buybacks, and is shipping V3 as a ZK rollup with easier API/cross-margin between perps and options. At a ~$228M market cap, it could be worth $1B+ if it remains the leading options venue.