The Latest: Bitcoin futures soar in first hours of trading

 Trading in the first-ever bitcoin futures began at 5 p.m. central time. At 9:15 CST, the futures contract that expires in January, which opened at $15,000, was trading at $18,010, according to CBOE Global Markets.The CBOE’s competitor exchange, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, will start trading its own futures on Dec. 18.

The price of a bitcoin has soared since beginning the year below $1,000, hitting a peak of more than $16,858 Dec. 7 on the bitcoin exchange Coindesk. As of 9:10 p.m. CST, it was at $16,405.76 on Coindesk.6:05 p.m.The first-ever bitcoin futures rose in early trading. The futures rose $540 to $16,000 on the Chicago Board Options Exchange.The traffic to the Chicago Board Options Exchange website after start of trading overwhelmed the site.“Due to heavy traffic on our website, visitors to www.cboe.com may find that it is performing slower than usual and may at times be temporarily unavailable,” the exchange said in a statement. But it said the trading in the futures had not been disrupted. 

 Bitcoin is a digital currency that has exploded in popularly and volatility this year. Sunday marked the first time bitcoin futures have traded on a major U.S. exchange.The CBOE futures do not involve actual bitcoin; they’re securities that will track the price of bitcoin on Gemini, one of the larger bitcoin exchanges.

This story has been corrected to show that traffic to the CBOE’s website, not trading on the website, slowed the site’s performance.Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.