Binance's push to capture the cryptocurrency derivatives and futures market

Binance acquired JEX, a little-known crypto derivatives trading platform.

These initiatives are part of Binance's push to capture the crypto derivatives market and usurp incumbents BitMEX and Deribit.

In order to encourage users to participate in the ballot, Binance will host a trading competition granting winners a total of 10,000 BNB, worth over $216,000.

Those who vote correctly for the winning platform will be given a 50 percent trading fee discount on the official Binance Futures Platform for a full month.

A few hours after the announcement, Binance also revealed that it acquired JEX, a cryptocurrency trading platform offering spot and derivatives trading services.

The crypto-asset exchange will be renamed Binance JEX and will be focused on delivering Binance customers with derivatives products, including futures, options, perpetual contracts.

The new derivatives trading platform will offer perpetual futures based on the BTC/USDT pair with up to 20x leverage.

"JEX has a seasoned developer team with proven experience in crypto asset product development. [They have] developed solid derivatives product offerings, which are aligned with Binance's product roadmaps in the crypto asset derivatives market," said Binance co-founder Yi He. Binance is entering the crypto derivatives market in preparation for the anticipated launch of Bakkt's physically-settled Bitcoin futures, which is believed to bring an inflow of institutional capital and liquidity into the space.

"Given the huge existing customer base on spot and margin trading, it will be relatively much easier for Binance to build initial liquidity than other competitors, which is the most difficult part of starting up an exchange."

Binance will need to provide a decisive advantage over competitors to gain control over the crypto-derivatives market.