Optimal Market Technologies Launches New Options Platform
Optimal Market Technologies has launched a new options execution platform with backing from several leading global market makers. The platform introduces a Competition for Order Flow (CFOF) model designed to address execution challenges in U.S. listed options. The launch represents new competition and technological innovation within the market execution space.
- The platform is backed by prominent market makers including Optiver, Virtu Financial, Akuna, and BSC Ventures, who are also investors in the company. - Optimal Market Technologies was spun out of RQD* Clearing, a company also founded by Optimal's CEO, Brian Donnelly, who previously established the options market maker Volant Trading. - The "Competition for Order Flow" (CFOF) model will allocate retail options orders to multiple "primary market makers" on a name-by-name basis, based on rolling execution quality metrics. Order flow will be reallocated monthly based on which firms deliver better outcomes. - Initially, the platform's primary market makers will include Akuna, Belvedere Trading, Group One Trading, Optiver, and Virtu. - The venture aims to challenge the dominance of Citadel Securities, IMC, and Jane Street in the retail options order flow market; these three firms will reportedly not be allowed on the platform at the outset. - In the fourth quarter of 2025, the largest electronic liquidity providers paid $841.1 million to retail brokers for 1.97 billion routed options contracts. Citadel Securities accounted for 34% of the contracts executed, followed by IMC with 25% and Jane Street with 13%. - The CFOF model is designed to allow market makers to concentrate on products where they have a competitive advantage, rather than requiring them to quote the entire list of names to receive meaningful order flow. - The platform's performance scorecard uses an exponentially weighted moving average with a six-week half-life to smooth execution quality data, a feature designed to make the system difficult to game with short-term pricing strategies.
