XRPL targets $40B Bitcoin and Ethereum options market with new sidechain

A proposal circulating in the XRP Ledger (XRPL) community is aiming at one of crypto’s most entrenched trading businesses: options.

The idea is to build a purpose-built XRPL sidechain that feels “Hyperliquid-like,” a venue designed for exchange-grade execution, then connect that activity back to the XRPL base layer through bridging.

In the proposal’s document, Hyperliquid has shown that a dedicated chain can bootstrap deep derivatives liquidity if it gets the execution engine, risk controls, and incentives right.

This move is notable because it signals a broader shift in how parts of the XRPL ecosystem may compete in decentralized finance.

Instead of trying to match general-purpose DeFi ecosystems app-for-app, the network and its developers want to focus on a specialized financial primitive where market structure matters more than breadth.

In this case, that primitive is derivatives, and more specifically, options.

Why the timing matters

The backdrop is a derivatives market that has become one of crypto’s biggest liquidity battlegrounds.

Data from CoinGecko estimates that the total perpetual futures trading across centralized and decentralized venues reached $92.9 trillion in 2025, while Perp DEX volume jumped 346% to $6.7 trillion.

That level of growth has altered the strategic map for blockchains that once sat outside the core DeFi conversation. If a network can host the flow, it can capture the fees, the users, and a larger share of market relevance.

Hyperliquid has become the clearest example of that shift.

By focusing on a trading-centric stack, including tight execution, coherent risk design, and an order book model that feels familiar to exchange users, it has grown into one of the sector’s most important on-chain venues.

DefiLlama’s data show Hyperliquid posting hundreds of billions in 30-day perpetual futures volume, billions in open interest, and tens of millions in rolling-month earnings.

That is the template the XRPL proposal is borrowing from, even though it targets a different corner of the derivatives market.

The more important point is strategic. A successful trading venue does not need to be all things to all users. It needs to solve a narrow but valuable problem better than rivals do.

For XRPL, the proposal suggests the opportunity may lie less in chasing general DeFi composability and more in building a derivatives venue where execution quality and liquidity depth define the product.

The XRPL sidechain focuses on options, not perpetuals

That distinction matters because perpetual futures are already crowded. Options are not.

However, liquidity in crypto options remains heavily centralized, with Coinbase-owned Deribit widely viewed as the dominant venue. The company claims to account for about 85% of the $40 billion BTC and ETH options activity.

That concentration reinforces itself. Market makers cluster where the order flow is deepest, and order flow gravitates to the venues with the tightest spreads and the most dependable liquidity.

The XRPL sidechain pitch is trying to wedge into that structure by emphasizing features that are less common in crypto-native options products.

One of the main differentiators is support for American-style options, which can be exercised before expiry. Much of the crypto options market, especially on centralized platforms, is built around European-style exercise at expiry.

That distinction will not matter to every trader, especially at launch. But it does matter for some hedging and structured strategies, and it gives the proposal a more TradFi-like profile.

For an ecosystem that has spent more time building payment rails than derivatives infrastructure, that is part of the point.

The proposal also makes clear that this is not meant to be a low-risk testing ground, as it includes margin functionality and leverage of up to 200x.

In practical terms, that means the proposal is not describing a cautious options sandbox.

It describes a high-performance venue that would compete for serious derivatives traders, the kind who care about execution speed, reliability, and capital efficiency as much as they care about product design.

That is where the opportunity becomes real, but so does the difficulty.

Risk engines and liquidity are the real test

Building a derivatives sidechain is easier to describe than to operate because two hard problems sit at the center of any serious derivatives venue.

The first is the risk engine. Options and leveraged trading require consistent mark pricing, dependable oracles, liquidation systems, and margin models that hold up under stress.

If American-style exercise is part of the design, the venue also has to handle assignment and exercise edge cases cleanly.

These are not back-office details. In volatile markets, they become the product.

Trading systems rarely fail in a contained way. If a venue misprices risk, freezes during sharp moves, or cannot process liquidations reliably, traders and market makers can quickly lose confidence.

That is one reason Hyperliquid’s success has mattered so much. It not only offered throughput but also provided a cohesive trading experience that persuaded liquidity to stay.

The second problem is liquidity concentration. Derivatives markets tend to be winner-take-most as traders care about spreads, depth, and uptime.

A new venue can launch with sophisticated technology and still remain irrelevant if it cannot attract market makers and enough two-way flow.

That makes the XRPL proposal as much a distribution and credibility challenge as a technical one.

In that sense, the sidechain pitch is not simply about copying Hyperliquid’s architecture.

It is about replicating the flywheel that made Hyperliquid matter in the first place: execution quality leads to liquidity, liquidity improves execution, and stronger execution draws more flow.

Meanwhile, the XRPL sidechain would rely on a trust-minimized bridge design using XPOP-style proofs and a high validator-signature threshold of around 80%.

That is a strong safety posture on paper, but it also turns validator coordination into a first-order operational issue. High thresholds may reduce certain attack surfaces, but they can also create liveness risk if validators do not participate consistently or if coordination becomes a bottleneck.

For many blockchain applications, that would be a manageable inconvenience. For a derivatives venue, it is a far more serious problem.

Downtime during calm conditions is one thing. However, downtime during a liquidation cascade is something else entirely.

A platform promising a Hyperliquid-like trading experience is implicitly promising reliable operations when markets are disorderly, not just when they are quiet.

XRPL’s compliance tooling could shape the bet

The proposal arrives as XRPL has been building more explicit compliance-oriented primitives.

In recent months, the XRPL has implemented institutional-facing features like the Permissioned Domains and DEXs.

While it is unclear whether or not this option’s sidechain is explicitly designed for permissioned liquidity pools, the broader direction is increasingly clear: XRPL is building tools that could support open infrastructure with segmented access layered on top.

That matters in derivatives, where regulatory and compliance scrutiny tends to be intense, especially for retail-facing, high-leverage products.

One plausible long-term design is not a purely permissionless venue or a purely closed one, but a structure that can support permissionless experimentation alongside permissioned institutional pools.

That would fit more naturally with XRPL’s existing identity than a direct attempt to become a general-purpose DeFi chain.

In light of this, the commercial opportunity that the options market provides is large enough to make the attempt worth watching.

Using DefiLlama’s rolling-month metrics for Hyperliquid, a rough implied take rate on volume lands in the low single-digit basis points range.

On that basis, a niche venue on XRPL would generate $0.1 billion to $1 billion in rolling 30-day derivatives volume, translating into tens to a few hundred thousand dollars a month.

However, a venue that reaches $10 billion to $50 billion in rolling 30-day volume could generate low single-digit millions to low tens of millions per month under similar assumptions.

Meanwhile, the bigger prize would come later. Deribit has reported hundreds of billions in annual options volume in recent year-end updates.

Capturing even 1% to 5% of that notional would represent a meaningful business, but only if the platform can keep spreads tight and systems dependable through volatile periods.

So, if the proposal advances from concept to testnet with credible specifications, audits, validator participation, and early liquidity programs, it would amount to a serious attempt to reposition XRPL in one of crypto’s most competitive arenas.