NYSE Parent Company to Launch Bitcoin Futures Soon

ICE announced its Bitcoin futures contract, which will create opportunities for investors who want a product with NYSE's pedigree.

The Intercontinental Exchange, the company known for fathering the New York Stock Exchange, just announced the launch of a futures contract tracking Bitcoin in a notice on Tuesday evening.

Although it’s still pending regulatory approval, ICE is confident that trading will go live on December 12 this year, making it almost precisely one year since the release of CBOE and CME’s futures contracts.

“Each futures contract calls for delivery of one Bitcoin held in the Bakkt Digital Asset Warehouse, and will trade in US dollar terms. One daily contract will be listed for trading each exchange business day,” the exchange wrote.

Minimum price movements for buying into the contract are $2.50, although block traders have the privilege of betting on price movements as small as $0.01 per BTC for each contract.

Approval from the CFTC may come swiftly considering the exchange’s reputation for tidiness and its liquidity.

Prelude to another bull market?

Last year, CME and CBOE both launched their Bitcoin futures contracts, an event that was followed by the strongest bull market the coin ever experienced. Using this logic, the launch of another financial instrument might just be the spark plug that gets Bitcoin’s engine running again.

After all, ICE is a highly-reputable institution known for creating a stock exchange recognized around the world.

This story, however, is not as predictable as it may seem. First of all, we’re not absolutely sure that Bitcoin’s rise to $20,000 in December was actually provoked by the futures contracts themselves.

Then there’s the fact that other companies like OKEx, with large amounts of crypto-liquidity, have already launched futures contracts on a variety of cryptocurrencies prior to CME and CBOE. Back then, the market didn’t budge.

On the other hand, cryptocurrency markets have a way of creating surprises, so all bets are off on what could happen to BTC the moment ICE launches its product. After all, we can’t compare Wall Street markets to cryptocurrency exchanges, no matter how liquid they are.