Today is the first full day of trading for Bitcoin futures on the CBOE. Trading under the symbol XBT, contracts actually began last night (Sunday, December 10th) and represents a milestone event in the legitimization of the worlds most popular cryptocurrency. Bitcoin futures allow market participants the ability to lock in a selling price for bitcoin as of a future date. Basically, you can get exposure to Bitcoin without actually holding the currency in your crypto wallet. The XBT contracts may be used to speculate or to hedge.
Leading up to the launch of XBT contracts, Bitcoin has had a highly volatile ride. Many prognosticators pointed to the intent of both the CBOE and CME to offer derivatives in Bitcoin. CME will follow later this month with its own contract available for trading on the CME Globex electronic trading platform effective on Sunday, December 17, 2017 for a trade date of December 18.
Now that #bitcoin futures are live at the Cboe Futures Exchange @RussellRhoads explains how to use futures to hedge bitcoin holdings with $XBT contracts https://t.co/7syaqbQgiE
— Cboe (@CBOE) December 11, 2017
CBOE reported that the launch was smooth but their website experienced some issues due to an overwhelming number of hits looking for the trading data. CBOE said that over 800 contracts traded in the first 2 hours of the XBT contract launch.
Cboe #BitcoinFutures $XBT trades over 800 contracts in the first 2 hours post launch #bitcoin @GeminiDotCom https://t.co/kHiZo8DR9m] pic.twitter.com/oCCxRZcPnC
— Cboe (@CBOE) December 11, 2017
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