Kraken rolled out options trading for Bitcoin and Ether on July 17, making its clearest play yet for the institutional derivatives crowd. The contracts are European-style, cash-settled, and denominated in US dollars, which is a deliberate choice to look and feel like the options products that traditional finance traders already know.

What Kraken actually built

The new options cover BTC (listed as XBT/USD) and ETH, with expiration timelines stretching from weekly contracts all the way out to semi-annual. For now, access runs through a request-for-quote system on Kraken Pro, meaning this is aimed squarely at professionals and institutional desks rather than retail traders.

Cash settlement is the key design decision…