Antimatter — lightweight on-chain and cross-chain DeFi

3 min readFeb 25, 2021

The Uniswap for Options and Derivatives

The current DeFi derivative platforms are more complex than centralized exchanges. There are currently no DeFi platforms where non-experienced users can execute their long and short strategies thus hindering mass adoption and retail use.

To build financial products for mass adoption, Antimatter will aim for simplicity and normalization as the main priority for every product released. The initial Antimatter product will be an ETH perpetual put option product where anyone can short and long at any given time with secondary market opportunities (market-making and arbitrage).

Introducing polarized tokens

Antimatter is introducing the concept of Polarized Tokens. An AntiMatter option product will always consist of two forces: positive (long) and negative (short). By trading these tokens, users can get exposure to the underlying product by going long or short.

The two forces will always balance each other out making a sum of the two equal a constant C.

Understanding Antimatter products compared to understanding Uniswap mechanism

On Uniswap casual users don’t need to understand the complexity of the underlying mechanisms to make simple trades, while advanced users will need to understand the platform more in-depth to create pools, provide liquidity, etc. Antimatter will work in a similar way.

Traders/speculators:(Casual users who only use token-swap functionality on Uniswap): Only need to know about Antimatter long tokens to get exposure to AntiMatter put products or call products you buy positive(long) polarized tokens from the open market.
Liquidity providers/market-makers:(Advanced users who provide liquidity, arbitrage, and market-make): Generate and redeem polarized tokens, provide underlying liquidity and perform arbitrage. Advanced users can earn an extra yield on their underlying asset by going short on the put/call product and earning fees.
Funding fees are dynamic.

To explain this further using our Perpetual Ethereum Put Product:

-ETH($C) = Long Put Option Token Symbol (Hold this for put long exposure.)
-ETH($C)S = Short Put Token Option Symbol (Hold this for put short exposure. In the Perpetual Put Product going short on the put option equal holding spot ETH.
Note how there is (-) in front of the ETH product symbol. (-) denominates the put product, while our call product in the future will be denominated with (+)

Explain ETH Put Option product like I’m 5 years old:

Simple users: Buy -ETH($C) from the open market to get short exposure on the underlying asset.

Advanced users: Mint -ETH($C) + -ETH($C)S by depositing C collateral to market-make, add liquidity and perform arbitrage.

I think in the future ETH will DECREASE in value.

I buy -ETH($C) from the open market and hold it.

I’m now long on the put option product. Meaning I’m short on ETH. ETH goes down, my -ETH($C) increases in value.

AntiMatter is launching its own OptionSwap for polarized option tokens, integrating a shadow token mechanism

Since Uniswap does not support rebasing mechanisms Antimatter will be launching its own OptionSwap — Uniswap for polarized option tokens in Q2 2021.

There are 3 key players in the AntiMatter product ecosystem:

Traders and speculators: Speculating and getting exposure on the underlying product by trading the two underlying polarized tokens
Market-makers: Generate pairs of polarized tokens by depositing collateral C, supplying liquidity to the product
Arbitrager: Helps maintain a balance of C = -ETH($) + -ETH($)S