

Delta Exchange’s Pankaj Balani: Building a Crypto Derivatives Exchange for Global Scale.
Mar 25, 2020
49:05
Host Tom Shaughnessy talks to Pankaj Balani, CEO and co-founder of Delta Exchange. They discuss the differences between derivatives exchanges vs traditional exchanges, market stability, current engineering challenges, and more.
Episode Highlights:
- Pankaj began in derivatives trading in Hong Kong before moving into hedge funds.
- Pankaj believes his old colleagues view crypto as another asset class and are receptive to it.
- The reaction has been positive to the recent Supreme Court decision in India to lift the ban on banks handling cryptocurrencies.
- There has been significant growth in crypto in India in the last 2-3 months, more than many other markets have seen.
- Even in the US, a lot of the major banks are difficult to work within crypto.
- More and more people are viewing Bitcoin as a stable investment.
- Delta’s focus is on retail and professional traders; there is a demand for hedging, but there is more demand for speculation.
- They have more coins listed with them than any other peer exchange.
- Delta plans to launch a product that marries DeFi and CeFi
- They realized they had to build technology that could monitor as many as 100 coins over every customer throughout the day’s fluctuations.
- These engineering challenges are comparable to the engineering challenges in video streaming.
- Pankaj doesn’t attribute the current market fluctuations entirely to coronavirus but it’s certainly a factor.
Key Points:
- The lack of cooperation from major banks has held the development of crypto back.
- No one in the derivatives space has truly solved the problem of scale across multiple assets.
- Trading on futures is necessary in crypto.
Quotes
- “The genesis of derivative products, the need, it basically arose from the fact that people need to protect themselves against price movements.” –Pankaj Balani
- “We are always very available to any kind of discussions. That’s the beauty of working in cryptos—you run a company and you’re interacting with your customers.” –Pankaj Balani
Support The Show
- ZenLedger is the official tax software of Chain Reaction for crypto investors and accountants. Get a 15% discount when you use code Chain15.
- Visit Delta Exchange For A $10 Welcome Bonus!
Resources Mentioned:
- Chain Reaction Twitter: https://twitter.com/chainpodcast
- Tom Shaughnessy Twitter: https://twitter.com/Shaughnessy119
- ZenLedger is the official tax software of Chain Reaction for crypto investors and accountants. Get a 15% discount when you use code Chain15.