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Market Maker / LP Program

Market Maker / Liquidity Provider Program

ClickOptions integrates professional Market Makers (MMs) to deliver continuous, competitive, and demonstrably best-priced options quotes. This page defines the obligations, monitoring, and enforcement that make that promise measurable rather than aspirational.

The ClickOptions difference — a price-improvement mandate

For most venues, a market maker's core duty is simply to be present with a quote. On ClickOptions, presence is the baseline, not the obligation. The binding commitment is price improvement: MMs contractually undertake to quote tighter spreads and lower premiums than the wider market for at least 95% of the time, per instrument — a stricter, relative performance standard rather than a simple presence requirement.

Vault-integrated model

  • The ClickVault is the settlement pool. MMs are price-feed providers, not fund managers.

  • Because ClickOptions uses a portfolio-margin model, a short option does not require separate maintenance margin per position — risk is managed at the Vault level.

  • MMs lock capital into the Vault as regular contributors, aligning their incentives with settlement solvency. They never control Vault assets directly.

1. Onboarding

  1. Capital Lock — each MM locks 250,000–1,000,000 USDT into the Vault (final amount set by ClickOptions) as a regular contributor.

  2. Acknowledgment — the MM operates strictly as a price-feed provider and does not direct Vault assets.

  3. Integration — connectivity via API / FIX, with mass-quote support and exchange-side Market Maker Protection (MMP) (see §7).

2. Quoting Obligations

2.1 Price-Improvement Obligation — the 95% Standard

For every instrument in the Core Coverage Set (§2.5), the MM's live two-sided quote must improve on the Consolidated External Best for ≥ 95% of evaluated snapshots per instrument, per UTC day.

Consolidated External Best (CEB) — the tightest bid and lowest ask across the major external options venues, taken from the ClickOptions market-data pipeline's synchronized top-of-book (the same normalized, per-underlying USD feed used by our public pricing benchmarks).

A snapshot qualifies as improving when both hold:

CO Ask≤CEB Ask(lower premium to buy)andCO Spread≤CEB Spread(tighter market)\text{CO Ask} \le \text{CEB Ask} \quad\text{(lower premium to buy)} \qquad\text{and}\qquad \text{CO Spread} \le \text{CEB Spread}\quad\text{(tighter market)}

  • The obligation is relative (versus the live external market), which automatically adapts to volatility regimes — unlike a fixed spread cap.

  • For deep-OTM series whose fair bid is zero, the obligation applies to the offer (ask) side only — a lower premium than the external best ask (see §2.2).

  • The Maximum Quote Width matrix (§2.3) is an independent absolute ceiling that applies at all times, including when no external quote exists.

2.2 Continuous Presence

  • Presence Ratio ≥ 99% of each UTC day, quoting 24/7.

  • Quotes must be two-sided wherever a genuine two-sided market exists. For deep-OTM tail series whose fair bid is zero, a one-sided ask-only quote is normal and fully satisfies the obligation — the MM is not required to post a non-zero bid where none is warranted.

  • A valid quote — the unit counted in every ratio — must be resting ≥ 3 seconds, within the Maximum Quote Width (§2.3), and at or above the Minimum Quote Size (§2.4) on each side it is required to show. Flickering or sub-second quotes do not count.

2.3 Maximum Quote Width (absolute ceiling)

An absolute ceiling on the bid-ask width an MM may show, adaptive by moneyness and tenor — caps widen with both distance from the money and time to expiry. Values are a percentage of the option mark:

Moneyness (distance of strike from spot)
≤ 7 DTE
8–30 DTE
31–90 DTE
> 90 DTE

ATM (±2%)

1.0%

1.5%

2.5%

4.0%

Near (2–10%)

2.0%

3.0%

5.0%

8.0%

Wing (10–25%)

5.0%

8.0%

12.0%

20.0%

Deep (>25% or |Δ| < 0.10)

15.0%

25.0%

35.0%

45.0%

Under Stressed Market Conditions (§4) every cap in this table is doubled.

2.4 Minimum Quote Size & Depth

  • Best of book: ≥ 0.1 BTC / 1 ETH on each side (for BTC, equal to 10× the 0.01-BTC contract minimum).

  • Depth of book: ≥ 5 BTC / 100 ETH aggregated across the near-ATM, short-dated strikes.

  • Size requirements scale adaptively with moneyness and tenor; wings and long-dated series carry lighter depth obligations.

2.5 Instrument Coverage

  • Core Coverage Set = all listed BTC and ETH series with DTE ≤ 90 and |moneyness| ≤ 25%. The 95% price-improvement and presence obligations apply to this set.

  • MMs must maintain valid quotes in ≥ 90% of the Core Coverage Set at all times.

  • Far-dated (>90 DTE), deep-wing, and newly-listed series are encouraged but excluded from the binding ratios.

3. Pricing-Continuity Standard

Beyond individual quotes, MMs must maintain a fair, orderly, and continuous price path:

  • No gapping. Consecutive quote updates on the same instrument may not move the mid by more than the greater of one tick or 1.5× the current Maximum Quote Width, absent a corresponding move in the underlying index. This prevents discontinuous "jump" pricing.

  • Mandatory re-entry after a fill. After an MMP freeze or a fill that exhausts displayed size, the MM must re-quote within the Frozen Interval of 5 seconds (§7).

  • No stale, locked, or crossed quotes. Quotes must track the index; a quote that crosses the CEB in the MM's own favor for longer than one snapshot is treated as a continuity breach.

  • Two-sided wherever a two-sided market exists during obligated hours (ask-only is acceptable on zero-bid tails, per §2.2), except under §4 conditions.

4. Exceptional & Stressed Market Conditions

ClickOptions applies a two-tier carve-out framework covering both temporary market dislocations and outright emergencies.

Exceptional Circumstances — obligations suspended. Quoting obligations (§2–§3) do not apply during, and ClickOptions will publish the start and resumption of, any of:

  • extreme volatility triggering platform-wide circuit breakers;

  • a reference-venue or market-data-feed outage that prevents a reliable Consolidated External Best;

  • an inability to prudently hedge or manage risk (clearing, margin, or connectivity failure);

  • war, cyber-sabotage, or other force-majeure events.

Stressed Market Conditions — obligations relaxed. Triggered automatically by significant short-term moves in price, volume, or implied volatility. For the duration of the stress window (default 10 minutes, auto-extending while the trigger persists):

  • Maximum Quote Width doubles (§2.3) and Minimum Quote Size halves (§2.4);

  • the Price-Improvement threshold is relaxed from 95% to 80%;

  • presence obligations continue.

5. Monitoring & Measurement

Compliance is computed continuously, qualified daily, and reviewed monthly.

Sampling. The compliance engine snapshots every MM's book every 10 seconds and reconciles each snapshot against the latest Consolidated External Best from the market-data pipeline.

Daily qualification. An instrument-day is compliant when, over that day's snapshots:

  • Price-Improvement Ratio ≥ 95% (≥ 80% under Stressed Conditions), and

  • Presence Ratio ≥ 99%, and

  • no unresolved Pricing-Continuity breach (§3).

Monthly review. An MM is compliant for the month if compliant instrument-days cover the Core Set within a tolerance of 3 violation-days per instrument per month. Tiers and rebates for the next month are set from this review.

Scorecard & reporting. Each MM receives a daily report card (T+1) tracking:

KPI
Definition

Price-Improvement Ratio

% of snapshots at-or-better than the Consolidated External Best

Presence Ratio

% of snapshots with a valid two-sided quote

Spread Quality

time-weighted depth of improvement inside the external best (see §6)

Depth Score

average displayed size ÷ minimum required size

Coverage

% of the Core Coverage Set quoted

Continuity Flags

count of §3 breaches

6. Scoring & Rewards

A monthly composite score blends the §5 KPIs and sets the reward tier. The Spread-Quality multiplier rewards how far inside the external best the MM quotes — a distance-graded gradient rather than a binary pass/fail:

MM improvement vs. Consolidated External Best
Multiplier

Strictly inside by ≥ 50% of the external spread

5×

Inside by 25–50%

2×

At or inside by 0–25%

1×

Outside the external best (an obligation miss)

0×

Incentive
Mechanism
Notes

Revenue Share

MM Share=MM Vault DepositTotal Vault Capital×Vault Performance\text{MM Share} = \frac{\text{MM Vault Deposit}}{\text{Total Vault Capital}} \times \text{Vault Performance}

Proportional to the MM's Vault stake.

Maker Fee Rebates

Negative maker fees applied automatically on execution.

Scaled by composite score and Spread-Quality multiplier.

Variable Rewards

Monthly incentive multiplier from the scorecard.

Higher score → higher rebate tier.

7. Risk Controls

ClickVault enforces portfolio-level controls (CAR, Coverage Ratio). On top of these, each MM is bound by dynamic Delta, Vega, and Quantity limits that scale with Vault size, plus exchange-side Market Maker Protection (MMP) — automatic quote-pull when a risk threshold is breached.

Limit
Formula
Scaling
Example (Vault = 10M USDT, index = 100k)

Delta

Δlimit=α×VaultCapitalIndexPrice\Delta_{\text{limit}} = \alpha \times \frac{\text{VaultCapital}}{\text{IndexPrice}}

α = 0.5

0.5×10,000,000100,000=50 BTC0.5 \times \frac{10{,}000{,}000}{100{,}000} = 50 \text{ BTC}

Vega

Vegalimit=β×VaultCapital\text{Vega}_{\text{limit}} = \beta \times \text{VaultCapital}

β = 0.02

0.02×10,000,000=200,000 USD0.02 \times 10{,}000{,}000 = 200{,}000 \text{ USD}

Quantity (per 2s)

Qlimit=γ×VaultCapitalIndexPriceQ_{\text{limit}} = \gamma \times \frac{\text{VaultCapital}}{\text{IndexPrice}}

γ = 0.1

0.1×10,000,000100,000=10 BTC0.1 \times \frac{10{,}000{,}000}{100{,}000} = 10 \text{ BTC}

  • Frozen Interval: 5 seconds before new quotes are accepted after an MMP trip.

8. Enforcement Ladder

Graduated for ordinary quote misses, immediate for abuse:

  1. Automated alert (real-time). MMP protects the MM; the compliance engine flags any same-day breach on the report card.

  2. Non-compliance notice. Issued when an instrument misses its daily qualification beyond the tolerated violation days.

  3. Cure period — 5 trading days to restore KPIs.

  4. Rebate reduction / tier demotion at the next monthly review if monthly KPIs are missed.

  5. Revenue-share suspension after 2 consecutive non-compliant months.

  6. Removal from the program after 3 consecutive non-compliant months, or on repeated Pricing-Continuity breaches.

  7. Immediate offboarding and reward clawback for market abuse — wash or fictitious quotes, quote-fading/spoofing, or front-running the Vault.

Related: Staking & Vault Participation · Fees and Commissions · Pricing & Spread Benchmarks

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