In late October, the firm published details of the options product, saying each contract would be based on one bitcoin futures contract (comprising of five bitcoin). They will be quoted in U.S. dollars per bitcoin with a tick size of $25 (or $5 for reduced tick sizes), and will trade between 5:00 P.M. Central Time on Sundays to 4:00 P.M. Central Time Fridays.
Derivatives exchange CME Group has announced it will launch options on its bitcoin futures contracts in January.
In a notice on its website on Tuesday, the Chicago-based exchange said, as long as it gets the green light from regulators, the options will go live on Jan. 13, 2020.
In today’s announcement, Tim McCourt, the exchange’s global head of equity index and alternative investment products, said:
“Since the launch of our Bitcoin futures nearly two years ago, clients have expressed a growing interest in options as another way to hedge and trade in these markets. We have worked closely with clients and the industry to establish a robust and increasingly liquid underlying futures market here at CME Group, and we believe Bitcoin options will now offer our customers greater precision and flexibility to manage their risk.”
Providing some data on the performance of its bitcoin futures contracts to date, CME said it’s seen average daily volume of over 6,500 contracts so far in 2019, which equate to roughly 32,500 bitcoin. There are now more than 3,500 individual accounts registered for trading the products, and almost half of trading volume comes from outside the U.S.
Bitcoin News Summary – April 29, 2019
Crypto payments processor, Moon, announced a new Chrome browser extension which will allow Amazon purchases via Bitcoin’s Lightning Network. Coinbase account holders will also be able to pay via Bitcoin’s base layer, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash.
A survey of South Koreans revealed that 7.4% of the country’s population owns some form of crypto. South Koreans own an average of over $6,000 worth of crypto, which is a 64% annual increase. People in their 50s hold the largest crypto balances.
South Korea’s Samsung conglomerate reported they have invested $2.9 million into French hardware wallet manufacturer, Ledger. This funding brings Ledger’s total valuation to $290 million. As we covered in previous reports, Samsung’s new S10 mobile includes support for crypto wallets.
More than 400,000 confirmed Bitcoin transactions were recorded this week, which is the highest level since the transaction volume spikes seen briefly in December of 2017. However, the average transaction fee is about 6 times lower than what it was then, indicating that Bitcoin’s transaction processing capacity has greatly improved.
And finally, New York’s Attorney General announced a court order against iFinex, owners of the Bitfinex crypto exchange and Tether stablecoin. The state’s attorney alleges that iFinex secretly used $850 million reserved for backing the Tether stablecoin to disguise customer and corporate losses on the Bitfinex exchange. Bitfinex denied the allegations, including the loss of any funds in a statement.
