London, 3 November 2026: OptAxe has received the Live Trading award in The Full FX Awards 2026. The award recognises a new venture that began printing trades in the past twelve months and that, in The Full FX's words, "has seen a problem in the market, and not only delivered a solution to help, but also done so in a fashion that shifts the market structure just a little bit."
What The Full FX recognised
The Full FX describes OptAxe as "probably more accurately a multi-issuer venue" than a multi-dealer one, "as dealers list axes they have in the FX options market to targeted participants."
Its assessment centres on information asymmetry. FX options trades are bespoke and can be sizeable, particularly outside the G3 and G5 currencies. Distributing axes has often been, in The Full FX's phrase, "a blunt instrument where the dealer has little control over where the axe is shown." On OptAxe, the dealer decides which participants see each axe, and every trade follows a request for quote between the two counterparties.
Read The Full FX's article in full.
Thank you
We would like to thank Colin Lambert, founder and editor of The Full FX, and his team for the recognition. The Full FX writes for the people who run and trade FX businesses, and recognition from that readership matters to us.
The award belongs as much to our participants as to us. Since our first trade in January 2026, liquidity providers have chosen to place their axes on a new venue, and buy-side desks have traded against them. We are grateful to every firm that has onboarded, tested and traded with us, and to our team, who built and run the venue.
"When we started OptAxe, our promise to liquidity providers was that we would work alongside them, not around them. An award for live trading, informed by what dealers are saying about the venue, tells us that promise is being kept. Our thanks go to Colin and The Full FX, and above all to the participants who backed a new venue with real risk."
Chris Jackson, CEO and Co-Founder, OptAxe
What it means to us
For us, the most important line in The Full FX's assessment is that OptAxe is likely to succeed "not because it changes the market landscape, but because it enhances it." That is the model we set out to build.
Bilateral relationships remain at the centre of FX options, and The Full FX notes that our model "does little or nothing to threaten that." A dealer with an axe still wants to show it to the counterparties most likely to want it. A buy-side desk still wants to work size without signalling its intentions to the wider market. OptAxe gives both sides a regulated venue to do that, with the dealer in control of who sees each axe.
"FX options trades are bespoke and often sizeable, so information matters. Control over who sees an axe is what makes dealers comfortable putting genuine interest on the venue. It is good to see that recognised, and it gives us a clear brief for what we build next."
Yorke O'Leary, COO and Co-Founder, OptAxe
An early stage for FX options market structure
The Full FX also observes that the evolution of FX options market structure "is still in its infancy." We agree. Electronic trading has reshaped how spot FX, rates and equities trade, while much FX options risk still moves through chat, voice and manual workflow.
We do not expect that to change overnight, and we do not think it should change by replacing the relationships the market runs on. Our aim is to give those relationships better tools: discretion over who sees an axe, control over who can respond, and the framework of an FCA-regulated trading venue around every trade.
"Every asset class that has electronified has learned the same lesson: significant risk does not clear on a fully lit screen. In equities and credit, the venues that grew were the ones that let participants choose who sees their interest. FX options is earlier on that path, and electronification here is not about making the market fully lit. It is about giving participants an informed choice of where and how to show risk, with a clear view of the trade-off between liquidity and market impact."
Chris Smith, Head of Product and Strategy, OptAxe
What comes next
The venue's reach has widened since our first trade. In August 2026 the FCA extended our permissions to commodity derivatives, starting with precious metals options. Eligible US participants can trade on OptAxe under the CFTC's no-action relief for UK multilateral trading facilities, FINMA has recognised OptAxe as a foreign trading venue for Swiss participants, and the Ontario Securities Commission has granted an exemption that allows Ontario participants to trade the FX instruments named in its order. Details are on our regulatory status page.
Our focus for the year ahead is unchanged: more participants, more axes on the venue, and tools that help dealers and buy-side desks act on genuine interest with discretion. If you would like to see how the venue works for your desk, you can request a demonstration.
First published elsewhere. Read the original