Options

Featuring a dual investment tool, a bull-and-bear token mechanism and staking opportunities, AntiMatter is an excellent platform for trading crypto options.

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Tired of dealing with financial brokers? Due to stringent rules enforced by regulators in the industry, traditional financial products such as stock options and futures contracts can be a pain to deal with, driving some traders to seek alternatives.

) has exploded over the past two years, with 

 estimating that the market grew by 58% from February to November of 2021, from $72 billion to $170 billion. At the moment, not only does 

 have more use cases and is accepted across more industries than ever, but crypto and its various asset classes are also increasingly preferred over their traditional finance counterparts for the flexibility they offer.

In particular, crypto options are receiving a great deal of interest from both corporations and the public for the amount of leverage they provide. 

 is a platform designed specifically to facilitate the trading of crypto options. It’s changing the game by removing the need for permission entirely, and offering convenience through simplified products that are completely decentralized and thus accessible to a wider audience. Ultimately, the project’s goal is to create a decentralized ecosystem that functions as a gateway for DeFi derivatives, with a negligible level of liquidation risk involved.

In this guide, we’re going to cover what Antimatter is, how it works, and how viable it is as an investment.

Antimatter Finance is a next-generation DeFi derivatives platform that offers investors a user-friendly way to access perpetual options and derivatives. “Derivatives” in this context refers to financial products and

 that derive their value from an underlying commodity, like a cryptocurrency or non-fungible token (

In traditional finance, derivative products are highly regulated and not easily accessible to the average trader. Financial regulators make the decisions and hold all the power. It’s mandatory for parties who offer derivatives to have special licenses, and traders must be vetted before they can participate in the market in a meaningful way.

DeFi eliminates the need for permission by providing accessible 

 trading that’s borderless and completely open with minimal funding fees. The DeFi ecosystem is constantly evolving and creating new tools that enable investors to access the same derivatives offered by traditional financial markets, but without any of the red tape. 

Antimatter was launched in 2021 by Robert Hu and 

, well-known developers with extensive experience in the crypto finance market. It offers crypto investors the opportunity to profit from their holdings through derivatives trading, arbitrage and 

The platform facilitates the creation of tokenized options without liquidation risk or high funding fees, offering 24/7 noncustodial global options trading to investors. In addition to buying options, traders can easily generate and redeem options as liquidity providers on the platform. 

Antimatter bills itself as a “gateway for DeFi derivatives.” Investors can use the service to create and trade tokenized options with minimal funding fees and limited liquidation risk. Crypto options enable investors to use financial derivatives to speculate on the market value of a particular cryptocurrency (i.e., whether it’s 

The Antimatter platform currently features four main products: Dual investment, bull and bear tokens, NFT finance, and the Antimatter crypto DAO (

Different upward exercise investment options available on Antimatter. Image source: Antimatter

The dual investment product is essentially an advanced financial options catalog. It's a yield generator that is “market-neutral” with “returns guaranteed.” The yield rate is fixed at the time of purchase, giving investors the opportunity to enjoy a high fixed yield, no matter which direction the market trends.

, and then earn a yield on one of two currencies, 

 or BTC. The platform features two types of dual investments: 

(meaning the market will go down). Each type has its own strike price, annual percentage yield (

), funding fees and delivery date. At maturity, the settlement currency depends on the outcome of a selected product. 

Suppose John wants to invest 1 BTC (approximately $44,000) in an upward exercise position. He selects a product with 30 days left, 112.45% APY, and a strike price of $47,000. In 30 days, there will be two possible outcomes: 

The returns of a dual investment are calculated based on real-time market data, but once an investor purchases a dual investment, the yield is locked and won’t change. The dual investment product ensures an investor will always profit from yields. However, a significant deviation from the strike price can result in losses. 

There are two ways to participate in Antimatter’s decentralized options. A customer can either take part in existing options made by other users, or create their own options by using their preferred underlying asset and setting their own price range. 

This bull-and-bear token feature can be used to leverage an asset according to the direction an investor believes its value will trend. If you think an asset is looking bullish and you want more exposure, you can purchase bull tokens. If you think it’s bearish and you want some hedge, then bear tokens are for you. When the value of an underlying asset increases, the value of the bull token increases. Conversely, when the value of an underlying asset decreases, the value of a bear token decreases. 

The Antimatter platform is offering a service for turning NFTs into financial vehicles in a simplified way. NFT Finance comprises two products: 

Antimatter features a DAO that gives participants trading incentives, access to Antimatter bonds, the power to vote on 

 governance policies, and the ability to stake Antimatter’s native cryptocurrency, MATTER. 

The DAO is essentially a club for derivatives investors with features that include multi-party treasury management, on-chain governance, academic resource sharing, and more. Prominent members of the DAO include: 

The Antimatter platform’s native utility token, MATTER, serves as the ecosystem’s currency. It's used for paying funding fees and facilitating the platform's governance.

MATTER was released following a token generation event in February 2021 that minted 100 million tokens. Traders can buy the tokens from crypto exchanges, where they can be traded for ETH or USDT. They can also be acquired through staking, participation rewards, option creation and redemption, and more. 

MATTER’s primary utility function is to provide a secure and convenient mode of payment and settlement for users of the Antimatter platform. MATTER is necessary for paying all protocol fees, including transaction fees, funding fees, and option creation and redemption fees.

Members of the Antimatter crypto DAO have the right to vote on governance proposals. Anyone can create a proposal, provided they stake 100,000 MATTER tokens first. The staking period is equal to the voting period for the proposal, which can take three to seven days. 

To vote for a proposal, members of the DAO must stake MATTER tokens into a “support” or “against” pool. The pool with the most staked coins (minimum of 2,000,000) at the end of the voting period wins. 

Chart showing how MATTER tokens are distributed. Image source: Antimatter Finance 

The total supply of MATTER is allocated as follows: 

At the time of this writing (9 June 2022), MATTER has a market cap of around $7 million, and a circulating supply of about 31 billion tokens. Its current price is $0.22.

The Antimatter DAO can be used to stake MATTER and grow your portfolio. Image source: Antimatter

 and earn a yield from the annual reward pool, which contains 400,000 MATTER. What’s worth noting is that Antimatter DAO staking doesn’t have a lock-up mechanism, so users are free to stake or unstake their tokens at their convenience.

Antimatter announced in June 2021 that it was unlocking tokens vested by early investors. Image source: Twitter

, causing the value of MATTER to crash by 50%. In less than 24 hours, 16% of the total 100 million supply of MATTER tokens was added into circulation. The inflated supply sent the value of MATTER into a free fall. According to 

, MATTER’s value went from $0.44 to $0.22 in just one day. 

25% of the initial allocation was supposed to be locked for a period of one year, but core team members reportedly said a linear release was “unhealthy,” decided not to honor the vesting period, and unlocked the tokens. Naturally, the Antimatter community wasn’t happy about the announcement, with many seeing it as a breach of their confidence. Some have even accused the project of being a “scam.”

Is Antimatter (MATTER) a Good Investment?

Antimatter (MATTER) may be a good investment for traders interested in earning yields from staking MATTER in the DAO pool. The APY for staking is dynamic, and depends on the amount of MATTER a user stakes. The Antimatter development team has set aside 400,000 MATTER for its annual reward pool. 

Staking MATTER has the potential to be profitable; however, when the team unlocked early investors’ vested tokens, the value of MATTER took a big hit. The negative outlook caused by this event has kept the token from recovering. The value of one token has remained less than $1 since June 2021, which is a significant drop from its 

 of $6.05 in April 2021. In its current state, MATTER may not be a good addition to crypto investment portfolios.

MATTER is available for purchase from a handful of cryptocurrency exchanges, including KuCoin, Uniswap and Poloniex. The most common trading pair available is MATTER/USDT.

DeFi products have started a global revolution by making financial products more accessible to the general public, minus the red tape associated with traditional financial derivatives. 

Antimatter is well placed to become one of the best solutions for crypto derivatives trading with little liquidation risk. However, the DeFi space is highly competitive, with big names like 

, Binance and OKX offering solutions for crypto derivatives trading. Additionally, the rather controversial choices made by Antimatter’s core development team in 2021 may have hindered the project’s progress. 

Having said that, in the unpredictable crypto market, Antimatter may well recover to become a top choice among traders.

AntiMatter Crypto (MATTER): A Fuss-Free Way to Trade Options

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