Optiver, Virtu Financial, Akuna and Belvedere Trading are among the market makers lining up behind Optimal Market Technologies, a new venture that wants to make US retail options routing a transparent contest based on execution quality.
The target is the wholesaler, retail flow market maker, model dominated by Citadel Securities, IMC and Jane Street. In 04 2025, the largest electronic liquidity providers paid US$841.1m to retail brokers for 1.97bn routed options contracts; Citadel executed 34% (US$296.1m paid), IMC 25% (US$227.3m) and Jane Street 13% (US$119.3m).
Announcing its launch, Optimal Market Technologies, the firm described itself as a FINRA-approved US listed-options execution platform with commercial availability expected later this quarter. The company is being spun out of ROD* Clearing and is backed by Optiver, Virtu Financial, Akuna and BSC Ventures as investors. ROD* itself is led by Brian Donelly and follows on from its earlier proprietary trading venture at Volant trading. Its initial product set pairs an options alternative trading system (ATS) with routing tools and algorithms, with the first phase focused on the retail flow market maker community.
This new venture come as industry voices already joined up to defend competitive endeavours in the option trading space with the launch of IEX Options, which is directly intended to limit financial technological moats of the biggest player and is currently being argued in courts by Citadel Securities.