Crypto prime dealer GCEX started providing Bitcoin and Ether choices to skilled and institutional purchasers at this time (Thursday). The contracts commerce over-the-counter with its UK arm, GC Change Restricted, which is permitted by the Monetary Conduct Authority (FCA).
Hedge funds, asset managers and household workplaces that qualify as skilled purchasers can request costs from the GCEX buying and selling desk, the corporate stated. Retail buyers are shut out, as a result of the FCA has barred the sale of crypto derivatives to them since January 2021.
GCEX is pitching the product to purchasers who don’t want an change account. One such venue, the crypto choices change Deribit, has belonged to Coinbase for the reason that US firm agreed to purchase it for $2.9 billion in Could 2025.
Deribit dealt with greater than $185 billion of buying and selling quantity in July 2025, in keeping with Coinbase.
London’s buying and selling trade is coming residence!
Month-to-month Contracts Settled in Fiat
At launch, the desk quotes European-style calls and places, which may solely be exercised at expiry. They expire month-to-month and settle in fiat forex.
Costs come from GCEX’s liquidity suppliers, the corporate stated, and positions present up in its XplorPortal reporting alongside purchasers’ spot crypto and FX exercise.
The choices sit with the identical UK entity that runs the corporate’s FX and CFD enterprise. GC Change Restricted fell to a pre-tax loss in 2025 throughout an growth push.
Lars Holst, the founder and chief govt of GCEX, stated institutional purchasers had been asking for “a regulated method to hedge … with out onboarding to an change.”
Holst stated the corporate hedges each commerce with its liquidity suppliers and doesn’t take the opposite aspect of consumer positions. Patrons can lose not more than the premium they pay, whereas sellers can lose greater than they acquire, in keeping with the discharge.
Kraken and FalconX Already Quote on Request
A number of crypto corporations have began providing institutional choices over-the-counter since mid-2025. Ripple-owned Hidden Highway added cross-margined OTC crypto choices to its prime brokerage in July 2025.
FalconX opened round the clock digital entry to its choices desk that September, masking Bitcoin, Ether, Solana and HYPE, in keeping with the corporate.
Kraken’s contract has the identical design. In July it launched European-style Bitcoin and Ether choices settled in US {dollars}, traded solely by request for quote, with expiries from weekly to semi-annual.
Three Regulators, Separate Entities
Few crypto companies clear the FCA. The regulator registered 68 cryptoasset corporations between January 2020 and August 2026, or 17% of the 391 purposes it determined, FM Intelligence information present.
GC Change Restricted holds its authorization below agency reference quantity 828730. The FCA is one among 12 regulators whose public registers FM Intelligence’s license monitoring software tracks.
Spot crypto buying and selling stays with GC Change A/S, which the Danish Monetary Supervisory Authority authorizes below the EU Markets in Crypto-Belongings Regulation (MiCA). A 3rd unit, in Dubai and now led by Alya Marrakchi, holds a license from the Digital Belongings Regulatory Authority (VARA).
This text was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.
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