Opium serves as a novel platform designed for the creation and trading of cryptocurrency derivatives. The project started its operations in May 2020, leveraging Ethereum to power a decentralized marketplace that allows any holder of cryptocurrency to take part. Its primary goal is to make financial derivatives more accessible by utilizing the advantages of decentralization compared to traditional systems. The native OPIUM token was introduced in January 2021 and is intended to serve several functions, with a main focus on governing the platform. This enables active participants to cast votes on key operational decisions.

Opium’s development team has been building decentralized finance (DeFi) tools since 2017, resulting in three products constructed on the Opium protocol.

Andrey Belyakov serves as the platform’s CEO and co-founder. A member of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute, he brings more than 20 years of experience in professional derivative trading and fund management, having managed portfolios with assets under management of €20 million and over. His involvement in the cryptocurrency sector dates back to 2015.

The second co-founder is Arjan van der Kooij, a Dutch entrepreneur and private investor who concentrates on IT and technology startups.

According to its official whitepaper, Opium aims to serve as the “Bloomberg of decentralized derivatives.” Operating on the Ethereum network, the platform enables any user with a wallet to trade crypto derivatives and create or launch related contracts.

The project started before the DeFi movement emerged, with a long-term strategy focused on drawing traders away from traditional derivatives platforms. Although the introduction of Bitcoin (BTC) futures in late 2017 opened the market, it took considerable time for derivatives to gain significant traction within the cryptocurrency space. Opium plans to accelerate this adoption by democratizing access.

On the Opium platform, trades may include an optional derivative fee. If applied, 90% of this fee goes to the contract creator, while Opium retains 10%. The team has outlined future plans to launch a V2 exchange and implement Layer 2 functionality, which aims to reduce the risk of losses for users when Ethereum gas fees rise excessively.

Opium’s native asset is the OPIUM token, which operates as an ERC-20 standard on the Ethereum network. Its distribution follows a planned roadmap post-launch. From a maximum supply of 100 million tokens, 60% is allocated to an active users fund. The community determines both the definition of “active” participation and the quantity of tokens released at specific intervals.

Investors and advisors receive 16% of the total supply, subject to a wide two-year vesting period. The final 24% is divided between the Opium team, which gets 14%, and a Governance Reserve Fund, which accounts for 10%. This reserve is managed by users through a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

Opium engaged SmartDec to perform an independent professional audit of its operations, and the findings are accessible to the public online. However, SmartDec includes a disclaimer stating that one audit alone cannot guarantee complete security for Opium’s code. For typical users, risks align with those common to derivatives in general. If proper due diligence and an appropriate strategy are lacking, significant financial losses can occur rapidly when market volatility strikes.

As of January 2021, OPIUM is not yet widely available for trading because its distribution has only recently begun. However, by Jan. 28, 2021, the token could be accessed via Zerion. The team indicates that this status is temporary and expects the list of supporting exchanges to grow, with updates to follow as more platforms add support.