Bitcoin launches futures trading: Welcome to the Wild West
Sunday, December 10 is a deadline for the further development of Bitcoin. The price is likely to explode, but it is not clear in which direction.
Bitcoin fans are speculating about the long-awaited cryptocurrency legitimacy when futures trading starts this weekend. A future is a contract against the price of an asset in the future. Buyers bet on what the price of a value looks will be in the future, and can make a profit both in terms of price appreciation and, above all, price losses.
The first Bitcoin futures trade will start on the night of Sunday, December 10, 2017, Monday at 6pm EST or midnight (CIS) on the Cboe Global Markets Inc. (CBOE.O) Cboe Futures Exchange, followed one week later by CME Group Inc ( CME.O) CME.
On the one hand, that’s good for Bitcoin. Because so far, many institutional investors have kept out of the cryptocurrency. The futures now give them the opportunity to hedge. You can buy Bitcoin and speculate on profit, and at the same time put futures on a loss to have some kind of insurance.
On the other hand, this prospect fuels the wild speculation about Bitcoin. The equivalent of a Wild West duel was already in the run-up. In anticipation of new money, the Bitcoin rate is rising rapidly.
On Thursday, 7.12. so many Bitcoin owners caught their breath:
Within 45 minutes, Bitcoin’s price has fallen by almost 40 percent, only to rise by more than 30 percent in another quarter of an hour. In this hour, the stock exchanges were partly paralyzed, because too many traders wanted to buy or sell.
But also the financial professionals from the futures world are alarmed. While futures are regulated by the state, bitcoin does not. What are the banks getting into? So reports Reuters:
“I’m surprised what happened in the last three months,” said Richard Johnson, an analyst at Greenwich Associates who owns digital currencies and considers himself a bitcoin bull. “I’m worried things are moving a bit too fast.”
For owners of Bitcoin is a hot week. If the trend continues, there will be extreme volatility, professional speculators will drive Bitcoin’s course ahead, and trading venues may go down.
Whatever happens, we’ll sit in front of the ticker on Sunday at midnight.
