Nasdaq to Roll Out Bitcoin Futures Despite Crypto Bear Market

Nasdaq Inc. is progressing with a plan of listing Bitcoin (BTC) futures, according to two people acquainted with the matter, betting on continuous interest despite crypto's dramatic fall over the past 12 months.

Nasdaq has been labouring to meet the concerns of the U.S's prime swaps regulator, - the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, before rolling out the contracts, the two people revealed. The New York exchange operator wants to start trading in Q1 of next year, as one of the people revealed. 

Improved Review Process   

BTC futures quickly charmed the financial world and invoked resistance from the big derivatives brokerages when Cboe Global Markets Inc. and CME Group Inc. applied an accelerated self-certification exercise to introduce their contracts to the market in December 2017 at the height of the world cryptocurrency craze. Regardless of high hopes that BTC futures would introduce a new epoch of institutional digital currency investment, trading in them has been unpretentious and the crypto has dropped from almost $20,000 to just above $3,500.   

   

After Cboe & CME enumerated their contracts, the CFTC declared an improved review exercise for exchanges seeking to list crypto derivatives.   

The SEC Approval for BTC ETF   

In January 2018, Adena Friedman, CEO of Nasdaq, revealed that the exchange was measuring how to differentiate its plans from contracts already provided by other contenders. The Nasdaq futures will have to be based on the price of BTC on many spot exchanges, as assembled by VanEck Associates Corp., the same person revealed. CME uses prices from four major markets, while as Cboe uses prices from one market.   

Apart from that, VanEck has been struggling to secure approval from the SEC for a crypto-based ETF.   

Nasdaq is not the only imminent BTC derivative. According to a Bloomberg report, NYSE owner ICE Inc. revealed last week that it will roll out its own contracts on Thursday, January 24, 2019.   

Nevertheless, Nasdaq officials refused to comment on the matter. A person representing VanEck & a CFTC spokesperson didn't react to the comment.