Paradex facilitates record $16M ETH options trade at lower cost than Deribit

A single ETH options trade worth $15.76 million just settled on Paradex, a decentralized derivatives exchange built on Starknet, for a total premium of $45,220. For context, that’s roughly 0.29% of the notional value, and the platform claims the execution cost came in cheaper than what traders would have paid on Deribit, the reigning king of centralized crypto options. Paradigm’s RFQ engine changes the math The record trade followed Paradex’s integration of Paradigm’s request-for-quote liquidity network on September 15, 2026. RFQ systems work differently from traditional order books: instead of posting limit orders and hoping someone bites, a trader requests a price from multiple market makers simultaneously, who then compete to fill the order. That mechanism is particularly useful for large trades where slippage on a regular order book would eat into returns. Paradigm’s RFQ network typically supports trades that are 100 times larger and more competitively priced than standard Deribit flows, according to the platform. The results showed up almost immediately. Daily notional trading volumes on Paradex climbed to between $14.5 million and $17.6 million shortly after the RFQ launch. O...