Zhu Su posted an article explaining the reasons behind Deribit's success.

Zhu Su posted an explanation for Deribit's success: it won the B2B enterprise market, with companies like Babel directing all their trading flow to Deribit. 3AC drove the bullish options long and gamma squeeze. Most venture capitalists believed DeFi options would rise, but only Ribbon and Hegic gained some adoption; ultimately, the real market makers still need to clear risk on Deribit. Deribit wisely resisted all my efforts to have them issue a token and also prudently declined attempts to list options on all altcoins. In the end, they won through high availability, risk management, stable products, and a strategy focused on professional users.