Bitcoin Global News (BGN)
July 27, 2018 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- Now that they’ve had some
success with Bitcoin Futures, many have been
wondering if the Chicago Mercantile Exchange will soon expand its
support of Cryptocurrencies in the form of futures contracts, to
Altcoins.
As of now, according to the
exchange’s CEO, Terry Duffy, the answer is a resounding, not
yet.
On Thursday, an interview with
Duffy was released by
Bloomberg that indicated that the CME is taking a very
cautious approach towards the next steps in its Crypto futures
contracts.
If you do not already know, a
Crypto futures contract is essentially a contract with a licensed
exchange in which you bet on the price of an asset like Bitcoin
over a specific period of time. More specifically, it is a legally
binding contract to sell this asset at a predetermined, future price. If
the investor is wrong, then he or she is legally obliged to pay the
money back to the exchange.
Duffy even went so far as to
suggest that they may have met a large level of resistance from
certain players in the traditional finance industry due to their
launch of Bitcoin futures contracts. He even appeared to cite this
suggestion as the reason for the CME’s reticence to rush into any
different contracts for 2018, at this time.
In giving further detail on the
subject, Duffy reportedly added that he believed that Altcoin
futures contracts are more volatile than Bitcoin futures contracts,
which is a fact that is actually fairly supported by
the movement of asset prices on
the market.
Even so, the CME’s launch of
Altcoin futures contracts might come sooner than they want us to
believe, given the state of competition in their niche.
According to an original
article by Cointelegraph on the
subject, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, which is the CME’s
main competitor, is taking a more active approach.
Since CBOE is specifically
monitoring its opportunities in other Crypto futures markets, one
can reasonably assume that the CME might soon follow suit. The fact
that they have been steadily making a profit on their Bitcoin
contracts can only serve to help this possibility.
To do so, however, would also
require being sure on the state of regulation in all of the markets
that the CME intends to operate in. Given that their primary market
is the USA and the USA currently has more than two regulatory
definitions of how Cryptocurrencies should be treated under the
law, this might be impossible to do, as of now.
By: BGN Editorial Staff
News:
Altcoins
Cryptocurrencies