AD Derivs: Insights from Crypto Option Traders

The episode carries genuine technical content in the oil-vol and crypto market structure sections - the Bachelier model switch, front-month liquidity dynamics, and the retail-perp dominance argument are substantive - but the back half devolves into a Monaco product pitch with low educational payoff.

“they actually switched to a normal margin model, I believe it's called Bachelier. To model uh, these priced moves as opposed to using log normality”

“retail appetite is so prevalently met by perks that who in their right mind would be like, oh, let me pay 30vols of bid offer in order to get this convexity if all I want is linear exposure”

The gold/BTC positive call skew analogy and the structural argument that tokenized equities need on-chain utility to succeed are genuinely fresh framings; most other commentary (vol carry works until it doesn't, retail dominates flow) recycles standard market wisdom.

“think about gold where you can actually have positive call SKUs. Most people who come from an equities background are just like, oh well yeah, puts should trade over calls”

“until we give people incremental benefit of holding tokenized Nvidia on chain in the form of being able to borrow, uh, against it or lend it out or dare I say, post it as collateral, why should people even hold it on chain”

Simran is a legitimate practitioner - oil vol at Goldman during negative WTI, then DeFi trading lead at GSR - with first-hand experience at serious venues; Monaco is pre-launch and the second half of the episode tilts toward founder pitch rather than deep operator insight.

“I like to say the first white hair I got in my beard was when oil went negative”

“It actually settled negative 3763 uh on the day. It's like that number. It's hard to forget when you're sitting on the desk”

The episode scores well on market data points - negative oil settlement price, silver/gold vol levels, dollar and metals percentage moves - but Monaco's own roadmap and market thesis rely heavily on vague assertions and round numbers rather than hard evidence.

“It actually settled negative 3763 uh on the day”

“silver volume right now the 30 day Vix calc is around 95. I think gold's around 36”

The host is technically literate and lands a few sharp follow-ups (Bachelier model, diagonal vol structures, the bond-market contradiction to the debasement thesis), but defaults to validation phrases and lets the Monaco pitch run largely unchallenged with no hard questions on traction, competition, or monetisation.

“And were you guys just kind of facilitating flow or did you guys have any like prop positions on that you guys were managing as well?”

“what's not adding up to me however is that if it was a debasement trade flow... we're not really seeing the 30 year bond move”