CME Gives Big News Regarding Bitcoin

CME announced on Tuesday that has included in its plans to launch Bitcoin futures once the regulatory review is done. This should happen in the fourth quarter of the year, informs HITC.

The news that CME is thinking to take such action gave Bitcoin a really good start on Tuesday, with the digital currency rising above $6,400. Once the world’s largest futures exchange says that plans to launch your futures, it’s kind of a direct win.

It’s all about the growing interest in cryptocurrency

“Given increasing client interest in the evolving cryptocurrency markets, we have decided to introduce a bitcoin futures contract,” said Terry Duffy, CME Group Chairman and Chief Executive Office.

CME is the latest name that entered into the business of offering derivatives for bitcoin, the volatile digital currency which is not listed on a major exchange. The new bitcoin futures contract will be cash-settled and based on the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR), which the American financial market company brought to life in November 2016 with the help of London-based digital trading platform Crypto Facilities.

On its way to becoming a strong asset

The fact that we’re witnessing Bitcoin derivatives grow at such a fast pace means that the digital currency is currently on the right path to becoming a more established asset class. When Fundstrat’s Tom Lee made his prediction that Bitcoin will hit $20,000 by 2022, he based his assumption partly on expectations that Bitcoin derivatives products will launch.

CBOE Futures Exchange (CFE) plans to offer cash-settled Bitcoin futures in the fourth quarter of this year or in early 2018, while New York-based digital currency-trading platform LedgerX got its approval to clear derivatives back in July, and started offering institutional clients the ability to trade Bitcoin options two weeks ago. In the first week, the company cleared $1 million, while the second one was even more productive, with another $2 million.