Odaily Planet Daily News: Lucas Schuermann, founder and CEO of Variational, participated last night in an X Space event hosted by Andy, founder of The Rollup, during which he revealed certain details about Variational Pro. Key points summarized by the community are as follows:
1. Variational Pro will primarily target the institutional over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market, covering options, interest rates, foreign exchange (FX), and structured products. OTC derivatives constitute one of the largest financial markets globally, with a notional outstanding value of approximately $8.5 quadrillion, compared to Bitcoin derivatives’ open interest of around $100 billion. Although the metrics differ, this is sufficient to illustrate the vast scale disparity.
2. Variational Pro’s scale will eventually surpass that of Variational Omni. Traditional over-the-counter derivatives trading remains outdated (requiring phone calls to bank trading desks for quotes, manual price negotiation, back-and-forth contract exchanges, manual management of collateral and counterparty risk, and manual execution of clearing and settlement processes). Variational Pro aims to automate this process through multi-dealer RFQs, smart contracts, and stablecoin settlements.
3. Some Variational Pro trading tools, including options, may eventually be made available to retail investors on Variational Omni. Currently, Variational has partnered with several leading institutional clients, and large customers are expected to join Variational Pro soon.