Right after CBOE launched bitcoin futures on 10th December, 2017, CME launched their bitcoin-related derivative on the 17th December, just a week after CBOE did. With that, Bitcoin eclipsed the $20,000 mark, trading shortly for around $20,089. Now, the price has slipped a little, but the positive outlook on the crypto market continues and the bullish “atmosphere” goes on.
Right now, the crypto market is already surpassing the $600 billion point in total market capitalization, when only a week ago, it was around $500 billion. Such increase of almost $100 billion in just seven days is staggering beyond belief.
In addition to the overall “greatness” and price increase of altcoins, Bitcoin futures launched by CME began the January future contracts at $20,000 price point. According to The Merkle, these contracts track the price of Bitcoin from an index that draws from multiple private exchanges, but the trades do not include actual Bitcoins, as the futures’ value comes solely from Bitcoin’s price movements.
According to CME data and the Merkle, around 220 contracts were sold within the first hour of trading for January. That is still a far cry from the staggering number of orders CBOE experienced in the first hours of trading, which were around 800 contracts.
In addition to Bitcoin’s bullish price increase, other digital coins have seen tremendous growth on the market, including Cardano, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Ripple, which saw increases of 400% and 300%.
Now, the next to launch bitcoin-related futures and products are Nasdaq and Cantor Fitzgerald in the first quarter of 2018.