Kraken just launched professional options on Bitcoin and Ethereum. Crypto venues are officially building like traditional brokerages now.
Kraken just built the dollar-settled options infrastructure that institutional desks already know, with one unified margin account covering spot, futures, and options.
CryptoVibe Desk · kraken · options · institutional
- →Kraken launched European-style, USD-settled BTC and ETH options for professional clients via request-for-quote on Kraken Pro.
- →Unified portfolio margin on by default, covering spot, futures, and options in one wallet, marks a structural shift for crypto options venues.
- →Watch for Kraken's public order book launch date and for Morgan Stanley to confirm the reported E*TRADE crypto spot rollout.
- European-style options → A type of options contract you can only exercise at expiry, not before. This is how most traditional stock and index options markets work.
- Portfolio margin → A margin system that calculates your collateral requirement across your whole trading book at once, so positions that offset each other reduce what you need to put up.
Kraken just launched USD-settled options on Bitcoin and Ethereum across four expiry types for professional clients.
The contracts are European-style: exercise at expiry only, no early exercise. Premium, P&L, and settlement are all USD-denominated. Kraken says this targets professional investors who know listed-options structures.
The margin setup is the structural story. Portfolio margin is on by default for all eligible clients, not an opt-in tier. Spot, futures, and options all live in one wallet. Offsetting positions reduce your collateral requirement automatically. That is a departure from how crypto venues have historically worked, where separate accounts for separate products were standard.
Access is via RFQ only for now. You request a price from a dealer rather than posting to a public order book. Weekly, monthly, quarterly, and semi-annual expiries are available. A public order book is planned for a later phase.
If you're running a professional options book, the unified margin is the number to watch, not the contract count.
Kraken accepts 30+ collateral currencies for margin, per Kraken's blog. European clients are excluded from this launch. Regulatory approval for Europe is planned for H2 2026.
Separately, Crypto Briefing reported that E*TRADE completed a BTC, ETH, and SOL spot rollout for brokerage clients. The reported fee is 50 basis points per trade. No Morgan Stanley or E*TRADE press release has confirmed this. Treat the fee figure, the SOL inclusion, and the "completed" framing as unverified. If it holds up, institutional desks are getting crypto access from both directions in the same week.
Kraken cites the late-2024 approval of listed bitcoin ETF options in the US as evidence of professional demand for dollar-settled structures. This launch is the crypto-native answer. The catalyst is named.
Kraken is leaving volume on the table with an RFQ-only launch. Deribit and CME already run public order books in dollar-settled structures. The venue that builds price discovery first owns the next cycle's professional flow.
Watch for a Morgan Stanley or E*TRADE press release confirming the crypto spot rollout within the next 30 days. If none appears, the 50-basis-point fee story was noise.
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