It’s official – the Intercontinental Exchange’s Bakkt platform is going to offer cash-settled bitcoin futures contracts before Christmas.
Today, the company published a press release showing how cash-settled futures will be hosted on ICE Futures of Singapore, which is regulated by that country’s Monetary Authority.
“Our new cash -settled futures contract will offer investors in Asia and around the world a convenient, capital efficient way to gain or hedge exposure in bitcoin markets,” said ICE Futures and Clear Singapore President Lucas Schmeddes. “Building off the success of our deliverable futures contract, the cash settled futures will leverage ICE’s regulated, globally-accessible market to offer a safe, secure and compliant environment for the trading of bitcoin.”
Bitcoin futures are a solid way to hedge against risk in the Bitcoin market.
Their adoption will also help to grow greater innovation in the Bitcoin space and probably spur more positive regulatory action.
“With bitcoin futures being offered by some of the most prominent marketplaces, investors, traders and speculators are all bound to benefit,” writes Prableen Bajpai at Investopedia. “These centralized marketplaces will facilitate trade based on a trader’s outlook for bitcoin prices, gain exposure to bitcoin prices or hedge their existing bitcoin positions. Overall, the launching of bitcoin futures by Cboe and CME will facilitate price discovery and price transparency, enable risk-management via a regulated bitcoin product and give a further push to bitcoin as an accepted asset class.”
The new availability of these types of BTC hedging products coincides with other Bitcoin-friendly trends: the proliferation of Bitcoin ATMs on American streets and slow progress by U.S. regulators are two. Think about whether these changes impact your BTC holdings, now or over the long term.
