Nasdaq will Launch Bitcoin Futures in the First Half of 2018

In 2017, we have seen how different institutions started to offer Bitcoin futures. For example, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) were the first in offering these products. Nasdaq has also announced that it was going to offer Bitcoin futures in 2018. Now it is confirmed. Nasdaq Inc is planning to launch BTC futures in the first half of this year.

Nasdaq Bitcoin Futures Launch
According to Bloomberg, Nasdaq has decided to offer bitcoin futures to investors in the first half of 2018. In this way, Nasdaq will become the third major U.S exchange that will offer the cryptocurrency market to traditional investors. The products will be introduced as early as the second quarter and the contracts will be traded on the NFX market.

Nasdaq will be competing with the CME and the CBOE markets, which are already offering bitcoin futures. At the moment, Nasdaq is a comparatively smaller player in the futures market. That makes it harder to create an image as a market for crypto derivatives trading.

Rich Repetto, analyst at Sandler O’Neill & Partners LP:

“They’re a small futures exchange, so they possibly see the potential to get into a product that could be much larger some day.”

Bitcoin is now being traded in unregulated markets and cryptocurrency exchanges. The CME, CBOE and Nasdaq are very regulated and could legitimize cryptocurrencies as investment tools. The market needs new institutional money in order to keep expanding and growing and this may be a good opportunity.

“It is a great example of the increasing institutional interest in this new asset class,” commented Adam White, general manager of GDAX. “The emergence of derivatives will help the process of price discovery.”

Cryptocurrency Market
At the moment, the cryptocurrency market is operating negatively. Among the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization only Litecoin and IOTA are registering gains. Litecoin (LTC) is growing 2.33% and IOTA 9.92%. Bitcoin, the most important and famous cryptocurrency is losing 3.69% and it is being traded around $9,700 dollars.

The market capitalization of the cryptocurrency market is $430 billion dollars and bitcoin has a market dominance of 38%. Ethereum (ETH) accounts for 20% of the market, Ripple (XRP) 8.6%, Bitcoin Cash 4,69% and Litecoin 2.68%.

During this year, the market may be regulated in most of the important countries, including Europe, America and Asia. The G-20 Summit in Buenos Aires will be focused on cryptocurrency regulations. Different finance ministers have asked for it during the last year and the beginning of 2018. Japan, Germany, France and the EU have given their opinions and are waiting for crypto regulations to take place this year.