Paradex options open interest crosses $250M after Paradigm’s RFQ integration supercharges volumes

Paradex, the decentralized derivatives exchange built on Starknet, has crossed $250M in options open interest, a milestone driven almost entirely by one thing: plugging into Paradigm’s request-for-quote liquidity network earlier this month. The integration, which went live around September 15, let traders execute multi-leg options strategies on-chain for the first time on the platform. Within four days, options open interest jumped 2.6x to $202M. It kept climbing from there, crossing the quarter-billion mark by late September. The Paradigm effect Paradigm isn’t just any liquidity partner. The firm operates one of the largest options RFQ networks in crypto, handling hundreds of millions to over $1B in daily options volume during peak periods. Think of an RFQ system like a wholesale marketplace: instead of placing limit orders on a public book, a trader asks multiple market makers for a price on a specific trade, picks the best quote, and executes. The results showed up quickly in the data. Daily notional options volumes on Paradex settled into a range of $14.5M to $17.6M following the integration. The platform also logged a record single ETH options trade worth $15.76M, executed at ...