Tapiero’s 10T Holdings, Akuna Capital Buy $100M Stake in Bitcoin Options Exchange Deribit

Dan Tapiero’s 10T Holdings and Akuna Capital have invested $100 million in bitcoin futures exchange Deribit, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.

Deribit, one of the world’s biggest crypto options exchanges by volume, confirmed the transaction occurred but declined to state its current valuation. It said 10T and Akuna purchased equity on the secondary market, meaning that no new shares were issued.

The last time a Deribit share transfer made waves, the Panamanian company was said to command a valuation in the hundreds of millions of dollars. That was in January 2020; options contracts trading on Deribit has since doubled. 

The purchase represents a sizable play by Tapiero’s crypto equity fund, which launched in February with $200 million to bet on late-stage companies in the industry. Akuna is also an investor in crypto startups, having participated in multiple funding rounds for crypto lender BlockFi.

“We are thrilled to make a significant investment in Deribit as no business in the digital asset ecosystem is as dominant in its sphere as Deribit is in theirs,” Tapiero, a noted macro investor, said in a press statement. 

Deribit facilitates the vast majority of global bitcoin options trades, according to Coinbase-owned data platform Skew. It reported $8 billion in bitcoin open interest on Thursday.

In a news release, Deribit said it has grown in tandem with this year’s rocketing institutional interest in crypto. Akuna CEO John Harris said there’s a “tremendous opportunity” to expand that footprint further.

“We still have a lot of growth in front of us,” Deribit CEO John Jansen said.