The first binary option market maker to become regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission, SpotOption Exchange, is now also operating as a market maker for binary options in the US. Forex Magnates has discovered that the firm has been actively trading and writing options on the Cantor Exchange for the past two weeks.
Cantor Exchange is a direct-access marketplace and a subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald, a global financial services firm. The venue is a designated contract market (DCM) regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in the US. It’s only legal competitor is NADEX (North American Derivatives Exchange), the IG Group owned venue.
The American market has so far been mostly shut out of the binary options trading world due to very limiting regulation. It is forbidden for any binary options broker regulated anywhere else in the world to solicit or accept American clients. Meanwhile, the two regulated US venues for binary options have not offered a trading system attractive enough to draw in retail traders in numbers compared to the potential of the huge American economy.
By developing capabilities for acting as a market maker on a US-regulated binary options marketplace, as SpotOption has now done, the firm can be seen as laying the groundwork for its possible expansion into to the ripe American market. The next logical step would likely be launching a frontend platform that will allow US-based clients to trade on the Cantor Exchange but with a user-friendly and exciting interface SpotOption knows how to offer.
