Bybit is adding options to a product that never holds the underlying shares, even though real, exchange-listed options on both stocks already exist.
Bybit will launch what it calls Perp Options on 17 September at 8 pm UTC, starting with contracts on SpaceX (SPCX) and Nvidia (NVDA).
The products let users trade options around the clock, with fractional lots, USDT settlement, and portfolio margin available to all users within Bybit’s Unified Trading Account.
Bybit plans to add new expiries regularly and says Tesla, the Invesco QQQ ETF, SOXL and Micron are coming next. The exchange’s own announcement describes the launch as “an industry first.”
A Derivative of a Derivative
The options don’t settle against SpaceX or Nvidia shares directly. Their underlying is Bybit’s own perpetual futures contracts – SPCXUSDT and NVDAUSDT – which themselves track the stocks’ prices without Bybit holding or delivering any actual shares.
An option buyer is therefore taking a position in a synthetic instrument that mirrors the stock, with no path to the underlying equity anywhere in the chain.
The perpetuals themselves have no expiration date, but the new options will, with Bybit adding fresh expiries on an ongoing basis.
Meanwhile both underlying names already trade on regulated US options markets. SpaceX completed its IPO on Nasdaq on 12 June, and standard, exchange-listed options on SPCX began trading four days later; Nvidia options have traded on US exchanges for years.
Bybit’s version offers weekend and overnight trading, fractional sizing, and access without a US brokerage account, but it also sits outside the clearing and settlement infrastructure that governs the regulated contracts, and carries no claim on the shares themselves.
Part of a Rapid Listing Pattern
SPCXUSDT itself launched on Bybit in May, marketed at the time as pre-IPO exposure to SpaceX ahead of its since-completed listing.
It’s part of a broader push by Bybit into single-name and ETF-linked perpetuals: in the past month alone, the exchange has listed contracts tracking consumer-staples and utilities ETFs, McDonald’s and Shein, among others.
Tokenised and synthetic equity-perpetual trading has grown quickly across the industry. The volume rose from about $85 billion in January to roughly $470 billion in June, according to The Block, with SpaceX the most-traded single name that month at more than $66 billion.
Coinbase, Kraken and Robinhood have all moved toward round-the-clock equity access in some form over the same period.
Bybit has not published the contract specifications, settlement methodology, margin requirements or jurisdictional restrictions for Perp Options beyond the marketing details in its announcement.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
