Even if there are numerous reports talking about going through a crypto winter that could last 6 months, a report (not confirmed so far) released today claims NASDAQ is planning the launch of futures contracts based on bitcoin. The crypto crash did not stop the plans from moving forward.
News was initially published by Bloomberg and described the futures investment, with the claim that NASDAQ did a lot of work to “satisfy the concerns of the US’s main swaps regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, before launching the contracts.”
Apparently, NASDAQ has been doing work for the futures contracts for a long time now. Quotes mentioned include sources within NASDAQ, some talking about this in January 2018. This means the futures contract have a long-term nature attached to them.
Adena Friedman, Bloomberg CEO, declared:
The exchange was weighing how to distinguish its plans from contracts already offered by competitors. The NASDAQ futures will be based off the Bitcoin’s price on numerous spot exchanges, as complied by VanEck Associates Corp.
NASDAQ is definitely interesting in taking advantage of the huge interest people have for cryptocurrency. Due to this, it is no surprise to hear that bitcoin-based futures contracts are planned.
The problem is that bitcoin value dropped by 80% in just one year so investors are highly agitated. This is not the case just with Bitcoin. It is true with all cryptocurrencies.
Although there is a big possibility that reports are 100% accurate, we still do not know if NASDAQ is going to actually release the contracts. If they will become available, NASDAQ would become the third financial exchange from the US that launches a derivative that is bitcoin-based, with Cboe and CME being the first two.
Up until now, such bitcoin futures stand out as the only mainstream and regulated crypto investment option available for investors. The crypto market is still trying to get approval for bitcoin-based ETF from the US Securities and Exchange Commission. In the event that this happens, specialists believe that Wall Street investors are going to start directly investing into bitcoin.
